Lexington public safety workers to get $4,000 bonus to help stop widespread vacancies
Editor’s Note: The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council voted unanimously Aug. 30 to approve the bonus payments for police, corrections and E911.
Some Lexington public safety departments will get additional money to pay current employees bonuses and give recruitment bonuses to new staff in an effort to curb widespread vacancies.
Earlier this year, the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council approved $5 million from a surplus for a one-time bonus for employees in Lexington police, corrections and E911.
In a Tuesday council work session, the city said it will use that money to give current employees $4,000 broken into two lump sum payments: $1,760 sometime this fall and another payment of $2,240 in the spring or summer of 2023, depending on the department.
New employees or recruits will get a total of $3,000. Those payments will come at different times depending on the public safety department, said Public Safety Commissioner Kenneth Armstrong said Tuesday.
Those payments will be staggered over time. For example, new E911 employees will receive $900 after six months and $2,100 after being with the department for a year.
All three departments have struggled with resignations since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The bonus payments come after the council approved new collective bargaining agreements between the corrections and police unions in the past 18 months. Those contracts also included hikes in starting pay and across-the-board wage increases. Public safety employees also received additional bonus pay in 2021 from federal coronavirus relief funds for working during the height of the pandemic.
Councilman Richard Moloney questioned why the city had decided to use the bulk of the money for bonuses for current employees when recruitment of new employees appeared to be the issue.
“I’m afraid someone is going to take this bonus and then in six months they are going to go to another place and get a larger bonus,” Moloney said. Moloney said when he proposed the money for additional bonuses he also wanted to include the fire department.
The fire department has not had the volume of staff shortages as other public safety departments.
Armstrong said city officials are concerned they are losing too many employees with years and decades of experience. It takes a long time to train public safety employees. For example, it can be more than a year before a police officer is fully trained, he said. That’s why they opted to up the retention bonuses, he said.
Some of the $5 million also has to go to fringe benefits, such as pension payments, Armstrong said.
The council gave initial approval for the bonuses Tuesday. A final vote is expected Sept. 8.
Corrections employees have told the council repeatedly over the past 18 months staffing shortages are contributing to low morale and staff burnout at the Fayette County Detention Center. The number of vacancies has topped 100 over the past year.
The departments have made dents in the number of vacancies but are still struggling with staffing shortages, according to the latest numbers provided by the city.
The number of vacancies by department are:
E-911
- 76 authorized strength
- 20 vacancies
- 7 new hires in training
Police
- 639 authorized strength
- 83 vacancies
- 29 new hires in training
Community Corrections
- 323 authorized strength
- 119 vacancies
- 10 new hires in training
This story was originally published August 24, 2022 at 10:35 AM.
