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City faces huge bills for safety salaries
By CHASE SQUIRES, Times Staff Writer DADE CITY -- City commissioners got a double dose of bad financial news this week as they turned their eyes to planning for the coming budget year. The bottom line: The police and fire departments need more money -- lots more. Fire Chief Bob Cabot and Police Chief Phil Thompson told commissioners at a budget workshop Wednesday that both departments offer the lowest pay among Pasco County public safety agencies. Both risk losing their best people, and the best recruits, if they don't increase salaries dramatically, the chiefs said. Thompson said his department needs an additional $187,000 by Oct. 1. Cabot said he couldn't even estimate what he will need until union negotiations are over. "We know this isn't cheap," Cabot said. "We know that the city is strapped for money, but I think this comes down to a very basic decision: Are we going to continue to be a city, or are we going to be absorbed by bigger agencies and be a Wesley Chapel?" Cabot said salaries have been allowed to go so out of whack in the past nine years that he has lieutenants making less than some of the driver/engineers they supervise. He can offer recruits $23,000 a year to start, while Hillsborough County offers $41,000 and Zephyrhills offers $26,000. "There's no sense in trying to assign blame or explain how it happened," Cabot said. "It doesn't matter. It happened." Thompson said the Pasco County Sheriff's Office is offering $31,200 a year for a rookie deputy while he can afford $24,495. Port Richey, a fraction of the size of Dade City, offers nearly $31,000, he said. "We're not trying to compete with the Hillsborough or Tampa police departments; we can't do that," Thompson said. "But we can't even compete in our own county." Both chiefs said they are willing to give up new equipment allotments if the city can embark on a three-year plan with pay increases each year to bring the salaries in line with the rest of the area. "We'll work with you. We want to work with you. We want to be positive with you," Thompson said. "But we do have a problem here." Starting pay for a rookie in Dade City is about $11 an hour, Thompson said, adding that one of his officers showed him a recruiting advertisement for a national pizza chain's delivery drivers offering $13 an hour. Commissioners Lowell Harris and Eunice Penix both said they were sympathetic and concerned, but none of the commissioners made any commitment during the two-hour discussion, which was the first step in crafting a city budget for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. "I think you deserve a raise," Penix said. Mayor Scott Black on Friday said it was too early in the budget process to know whether the city will have the money to attack the problem. "I haven't seen any numbers yet in terms of what we're going to be divvying up in the budget," he said. "We were hearing the wish list." In addition to the public safety salary concerns, commissioners also heard that the police department is hunting for an extra $80,000 to cover the first year's payments on 10 new patrol cars, enough so that every officer would have his or her own car to take home after a shift. The move would save wear and tear on the cars and double their service life, police Capt. David Duff said. Cabot said his department also needs three additional firefighters to meet new federal safety rules, and Thompson said his department would like to hire two additional school resource officers to put in elementary schools. Public Works Director Ron Ferguson said his department needs $382,000 in new equipment, and City Engineer Jose Gil said his department will need at least two more people to help run the water and sewer operations. Commissioners are set to meet today in a special session at City Hall from 9-11 a.m. to hear from City Manager Doug Drymon, who is expected to discuss rising city insurance costs and potential new revenue streams such as special tax assessment districts for rain runoff and other items. -- Chase Squires covers courts in east Pasco and Dade City news. He can be reached at (352) 521-5757, ext. 27, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 27. His e-mail address is
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