Prior to last week’s regular meeting of the Argos Town Council, there was a public workshop to discuss measures to hire and retain police officers.
Police Chief Rodney Rudd started by telling the council that the biggest trouble the department is having is the retention of officers. “The second biggest thing is, once we do lose someone, then to be able to get quality applicants.”
The source of the troubles, according to Chief Rudd, derive from being the lowest paid in the county in terms of police departments, and the lack of a take home program for police cars. “I think those are two big tools that play in retention and then also attracting maybe certified officers that are looking to come from other departments,” said Chief Rudd.
Council President Erica Partin asked her fellow council members what their thoughts were about the two problems presented by Chief Rudd. “We have to do something. We’ve got to keep officers. We can’t keep losing them.”
Currently, the council had already approved a $1.25 raise in salary for the police department in 2025. “That would get us up, next year, with the projected 2025 as we’ve already seen out of the other departments, we’re still going to be like $3.50 an hour below them.”
The proposal that Chief Rudd had presented to the council included $1.60 for patrol, $1.46 for the assistant chief, and 90 cents an hour for the chief. Rudd said that every position needed to be raised, but he was trying to focus the raises on the patrol level in order to get them to the $70,000 mark.
Council Vice President Ed Barcus asked if Rudd also factored in the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department into the pay comparison. Chief Rudd said that he hadn’t.
“Because these guys are paid more than the Sheriff’s Department,” Barcus said. He had spoken to a First Sergeant at the MCSD, and the base salary was about $71,000. “I just want to look at the whole thing, the whole picture. I realize that we’ve had this conversation, but the hourly wage is part of that, but there’s a whole other portion of that that comes with it too.”
Barcus used the Town of Culver as an example. “Ya, their insurance is less than ours, but they have a huge deductible they have to meet. There’s some tradeoffs in there.” He also mentioned the pension.
“The pension is kind of a double-edged sword, I do agree,” said Chief Rudd. “It can be a great benefit to draw people in, but then again there’s an age restriction. And also, you’re subject to losing officers to other departments with the same pension and they can carry the pension right with them. It is good, but also, we’ve been on both sides of that.”
The meeting switched over to the issue of take-home cars.
“But here’s the thing. Okay, we give you a car and you have to live within twenty miles. All you can do is drive it back and forth to work. Plymouth lets them drive anywhere they want, County lets them drive it anywhere they want,” Barcus said. Chief Rudd interjected by saying that he was not fond of letting them drive anywhere in the police vehicles.
“My biggest thing with take-home cars,” Rudd said. “It’s just like it’s your office. It’s these guy’s office. When you’re sharing an office with someone, everything you have is exactly how you want it and then you go home, and the next guy comes in and he moves all your stuff out of the way and puts all his stuff in your office. It’s the same thing with these cars to where they have everything, where they want it, exactly where they need it, they know exactly where their stuff is at, it’s where they work out of primarily. I think that is the biggest thing they think about.”
He added that he believes that take-home car policies save the municipality money. “I think every study we’ve ever looked at, that I’ve ever looked at, and this goes back for a long time, that take-home car policies in the long run save the municipality money over wear and tear because the car lasts longer, the officers take more pride in them, and they’re basically kept in better condition.”
Barcus said that he agreed with Chief Rudd to a certain extent when it pertains to larger fleets of vehicles. “When you’re talking three to four cars, I don’t know that that is a proven talking point.”
Chief Rudd reiterated that he would not be in favor of personal use take-home vehicles. “I’ve had a take-home car for twenty years. For the first eight I had it as chief. Now I’ve had it again for a couple more since then as my second stint as chief. I have no desire to use that thing anything other than to come to and from home.”
Council Member Bob Byers said that he was okay with take-home vehicles being used for personal use if the officers lived in town or within the two-mile zone and traveled around town.
“That’s kind of a moot point though because there’s nobody that lives here,” Barcus replied
Partin said that she was okay with take-home vehicles as long as they weren’t for personal use and the officers lived within 20 miles of town. “If it’s a tenth of a mile over? Nope, sorry about your luck. Move closer,” she said.
There’s a vehicle that the department would like to purchase. Rudd said that there are funds left over in this year’s budget that would cover the cost of the purchase. Byers asked if those funds covered outfitting of the vehicle to which Rudd said no. His plan is to ask for funds from the CCD Fund and also the Police Fund to cover the outfitting costs.
“The only reason we can do that is because we’ve been shorthanded all year,” Chief Rudd said when explaining why they had the extra funds in the department’s budget.
The vehicle is $38,000. The outfitting is expected to be around $15,000.
After a bit of back and forth, Chief Rudd was asked how many vehicles the department currently has. He replied that there are four usable vehicles and a truck that is being used as the School Resource Officer vehicle for the school corporation.
There were several different suggestions offered by the council, but by the end of the workshop, the council and police department came up with a compromise. The pay would be an increase of $3 per hour (the $1.25 already approved is included in this figure). The department would purchase the new vehicle and replace their 2017 Dodge Charger. The replaced vehicle would be turned into the SRO vehicle with the truck being given to the Park Department. The issue of a take-home vehicle was parked for now.
Since this was a workshop, nothing official could be voted on. However, during the meeting, the council was given Ordinance 2024-15, the 2025 Salary Ordinance. As stated above, the raise increase was $1.25 but due to the events of the workshop, the council decided to add an increase of $1.75 which would make the raise a total of $3 an hour for the police department. The first reading of the ordinance was approved by the council and will be voted on again at the next meeting.
