Sandy City leaders hope that higher, more competitive pay will slow the rate of turnover in the city’s police force, which currently sheds one-fourth of its personnel each year.
City council members on Tuesday approved a plan to pump roughly $1 million into the annual budget for police salaries, lifting entry-level pay by 10 percent and shortening the time it takes an officer to “top out,” or reach a maximum pay rate.
“We’ve neglected this, frankly, for a good number of years,” Sandy Mayor Kurt Bradburn said Wednesday. “I heard from the unions and officers that they had just been ignored, completely, in the past.