2007-01-08 Regular Meeting,Public Hearing and Workshop Meeting of the La Porte City Council

Browse Search

trainable and can pass a drug screen. We have also lost officers to go to work for other police agencies... specifically, 2 to Pasadena PD, 1 to Deer Park PD, and 1 to the Federal Air Marshal's Service. The City of La Porte hired these officers, paid their salary while attending an academy along with the cost of their academy, and all of these officers successfully completed a Field Training program. We trained them and got them to a point to where they could be successful police officers, but then lost them to Pasadena PD and Deer Park PD due to money. Again, we had a great deal of time and money invested in these young officers. One officer reportedly went to Deer Park and received a $6000 annual increase in pay. Can we afford to lose other officers? You can be certain that others are seriously considering this same choice. We expect to lose an officer to Baytown PD in the very near future. We do not want to be the other cities' "farm team". I have been told our pay is not in line with Pasadena and Deer Park because both agencies require some college or prior military/police experience before they can be considered for employment. However, all police officers must meet a minimum standard required by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officers Standards and Education. And the reality is-our officers are expected by our command staff, city officials, the HCDA office, and most importantly the citizens of La Porte to be as ethical, honest, and professional as any officer in the state. Our officers are also expected to conduct their investigations to be on par with any other police agency. We deal with the same criminal element as these other agencies. The HCDA's office even compliments our agency on the quality of our investigations and uses one of our reports as a tool to train these same area agencies.