The New Orleans City Council is learning more about the reasons why officers are leaving the New Orleans Police Department and what city leaders can do to retain more officers.
Council members received the results of a new survey conducted by AH Datalytics this morning. That survey shed light on what officers want.
"What we found in this survey is there's deep dissatisfaction with the promotional process and the transfer process, and it really goes across the entire department," Jeff Asher of AH Datalytics told members of the city council's criminal justice committee.
Asher told council members that officers want not only reforms in the NOPD's promotional processes, but also more frequent pay raises.
"The top two are really the most important: the longevity pay and the step increases," Asher said. "Making it so that it's not every five years that you get a pay raise, but it's every year that you get some sort of increase to keep up with cost of living and other things."
Asher said officers made clear that they want two-percent pay raises every year much like New Orleans firefighters receive. He also said officers want their unused sick leave to be paid one-to-one at retirement instead of five-to-one as is done now.
Officers also ranked a non-pay issue as one of their top-three priorities.
"Equipment upgrades is the non-pay one that got the most 'very importants,' but the top three are the only three that got above 80 percent of the respondents saying they were very important," Asher said.
Asher noted that officers found one positive in the department.
"Surveyed officers generally like their supervisor," Asher said. "They like who they're working with. They like who's immediately above them."
According to Asher, 268 officers across all ranks and experience levels responded to the anonymous survey. That's 28 percent of the force.
