Police chief proposing putting officers on commission compensation plan

Union negations took an amazing turn with the Shermer, IL Police Chief Richard Vernon, made an offer no one could ever see coming. He offered police officers the ability to pick one of two payment plans. One of which would be being paid on commission for citations issued and bounties for specific types of arrests.

The current union contract is set to run out on New Years, interested parties are making the last push to get the new contract finalized. As always compensation has been a sticking point. The city can only offer some small cost of living increases. The union would like to see something a tad higher.

Then today Chief Vernon came in with a proposal the likes of which no one had ever seen. In the proposal officers could pick to stay on a normal hourly wage. The proposed cost of living increase would be close to the number the union wants but not exactly that number.

The second part of the proposal caused jaws to hit the floor. The Chief was proposing to pay full time officers between $10 and $14 an hour based on years of service. In addition officers would be paid a commissions and bounties for various enforcement actions.

Shermer IL has their own municipal court system, meaning fines collected from citations stay local. The chief said he worked a deal with the mayor to divert more citation fines over to the PD.

The plan calls for commission to go like this…
-$15 for all simple traffic (speeding, stop sign violations)
-$25 for city ordinance violations (Disorderly conduct, noise ordinances)
-$50 for underage drinking violations
-$150 for DUI related violations
-$200 for misdemeanor arrests (theft, criminal damage to property, simple battery)

The reaction has been a bit mixed. Most officers were stunned and did not know what to say or think. Some were upset. Others grabbed calculators and started doing math.

Rookie Officer Brian Johnson told us this. “Last year I did 100 DUI arrests, I made like 200 underage drinking arrests, close to 300 DC citations, and like 500 traffic tickets. Now I just did the math on my cell phone and that adds up to $40K right there. If I am also making $10 an hour, my base salary is $21K. Meaning suddenly I am making over $60K a year. Right now with overtime I am making a little over $45K a year.”

Other officers who started to do math saw they could be getting a major pay increase, by accepting this payment plan. Officer Andrew Clark was not willing to go on record with all his statistics but would say if he keeps motivated next year, as he is this year he could be looking at close to $90K.

Chief Vernon indicated that he has a young and motivated department. “A few of the smart ones already can see how they can earn more. How much you want to bet that makes them more motivated to go out and do more police work? I bet we see some of these guys double the number of citations they write.”

The union has not yet reached a decision if they will take this two pay system. But from the officers we talked to it does seem very likely commission cops will come with this new union contract.