OP police pay study findings predictable

Rare would be any commissioned study of employee or executive pay that comes back saying, “No action warranted.”

It often seems that consultants are hired to provide evidence that justifies what the client has already decided to do. In other words, any governing authority would have a difficult time convincing its constituents that increasing the pay scale was in their best interests, “Because we said so, that’s why.”

No, any good argument needs a foundation to support it, and in Ocean Pines that would be the police pay study that will try to get a handle on the pressures that have caused payrolls at small departments to climb.

After all, it was just a couple of years ago, in 2024, that the starting pay for an Ocean Pines police officer was one of the highest on the Eastern Shore at $63,500 after completion of field training.

Today, that’s roughly the same as what other departments, such as Ocean City, Easton and multiple sheriff offices are paying, not that far ahead of Berlin and well behind Salisbury, which just raised starting pay to a little more than $71,000, and $78,000 up the coast in Rehoboth Beach.

Considering how easy it is to look up the pay schedules for law enforcement agencies in the region, there’s no  doubt that the study being conducted for the Ocean Pines will find that police pay will need to be raised if the department is to remain competitive.

The question at some point, however, is not whether the board will vote to raise the starting salary, but how much of a raise it will approve, since there are few signs that the competition between, towns, counties, cities and states for fewer applicants shows is abating.

This leaves citizens and their representatives having to decide not necessarily what the appropriate compensation for law enforcement personnel should be, but how much and what kind of law enforcement they want to afford.