JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — First-year Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officers are getting a $20,000 pay raise over the next three years. Jacksonville City Council unanimously approved a collective bargaining agreement with the local police union Tuesday.
Jacksonville’s Fraternal Order of Police President Randy Reaves said JSO has not been able to compete with the salaries of other sheriff’s offices. He said without this pay package, in four to five years the city would have been up to 500 police officers short.
City councilmembers said the agreement was needed, but that it could also put the city in a tough place financially. One city councilmember, Rory Diamond, District 13, said in a city finance meeting last week, "We are now broke."
Reaves said the collective bargaining agreement is a step toward recruiting and retaining police officers.
“To be honest before this pay package, to go out into the open market and try to recruit, they were literally wasting time because they just could not compete anywhere else.”
Reaves said the city currently has nearly 200 vacant correctional officer positions.
“What happens is the people that are there in the jail are then being mandated to work overtime shifts to cover for those vacancies that are not there," Reaves said. "That puts an extra strain already on a high stress job. And then when you add that lower pay and benefits, people get burned out quick. It's gotten bad enough to where our one-year officers are now having to work overtime shifts, our police officers having to go into the jails to work overtime shifts, just to cover so it takes some pressure off those employees over in the jail.”
Next month, first-year corrections and police officers will receive a more than $12,000 pay raise, according to data from the FOP. By October 2027, they’ll both be making about $20,000 more than they are right now, about a 25% increase. Veteran officers will also get pay raises and the retirement system is changing.
In a finance committee meeting last week, Diamond said public safety must be supported, but that the city is “now broke.”
"There’s this just awful after fact of this vote which is we are now broke," Diamond said. "I want to do this, I will support it, but then we’re broke. There is no money for cute programs after this.”
Monica Gold with the Jacksonville Community Action Committee does not agree with the approval of the agreement.
“There are a lot of areas of town that are going to be neglected because there’s just not enough money to go around,” Gold said.
Looking at the starting salaries at Orlando and Tampa’s police departments, two places Reaves said Jacksonville was losing officers to, the new JSO starting salary will be more similar.
The city council also unanimously approved raises for the local firefighters union, which the union president told First Coast News will help recruitment and retention of firefighters. President Kelly Dobson told city councilmembers Tuesday the contract was, "One of the best contracts we've ever seen."
The International Association of Fire Fighters Local 122 represents approximately about 1700 employees. The Fraternal Order of Police Jacksonville Lodge 5-30 represents about 2500 employees.
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office did not respond to First Coast News's request for comment Wednesday on this story.