Beckley, WV – (WWNR) – By a unanimous vote, Beckley Common Council approved an $8,000 annual across the board pay raise for city police officers.
Beckley Police Chief Dean Bailey said a raise was necessary to attract new recruits and keep current officers from leaving for higher paying jobs elsewhere.
Common Council had been working on police pay raises for the past several months.
“I think it’s a great idea,” said Councilman At Large Cody Reedy. “I was a hundred percent behind it. I think it helps the city as a whole and the whole community keeping us safe by keeping these officers that we’ve trained and had in our agency for multiple years to keep them here in Beckley. I think it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Tuesday’s approval of a pay raise for Beckley police officers prompted a similar call from city public works employees. Dennis Potter says he currently makes just under $30,000 a year. With that amount, it’s hard to get by.
“I do end up losing a lot of sleep, just worrying about things. You have to make a lot of decisions to find out where you can pull money from this week to get to next week. Try to put yourself in (those) shoes, look at the bills that you’ve got, living at the bare minimum and trying to get by with $400 a week. It’s tough.”
Potter says he’s optimistic that a pay raise will eventually be approved for public works employees, but that they need to do like police officers did, show up in force and stay persistent.
