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Salary Comparison Study2024 Nashville FOP

2Metro Human Resources has proposed to the Civil Service Commission the addition and removal of several peer cities and counties for salary comparison purposes. After carefully considering the information, the Fraternal Order of Police believes that metro should re-evaluate this proposal as the inclusion of smaller counties, who do not accurately depict Nashville’s environment will manipulate the scale to consistently show Nashville above market.

3As displayed above, every proposed city and county addition (red) is well below Nashville and artificially advances Nashville’s salary scale to a higher than market rate. In this competitive market, making these adjustments will create difficulty in the MNPD’s retention and recruitment efforts.

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5Additionally, of the proposed peer city removals, 2/3 of those proposed are ahead of Nashville’s current salary and would artificially shift Nashville from an under market scenario to a median market scenario in almost every rank.

6Comparably, all but one of the proposed additions falls well below the population size of Nashville.

7Of the utilized metrics, peer cities are being removed for a smaller difference in growth rate than a majority of the new cities that are being proposed, which are significantly different. The FOP is opposed to the implementation of many of these new peers and the removal of some of the existing peers. Given that there is no current proposal to adjust the police pay plan to align with a new pay study, there is no urgency to implement this change. We request that the Civil Service Commission does not adopt this peer city modification for the police pay plan without further review and discussion with the FOP.

9In 2020, a widely published report issued by GO Banking reported that the minimum salary required to live comfortably in Nashville was $84,787. With inflation, as calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that number is now $101,743. Including a 5% COLA, the MNPD base officer salary is 46% behind and the top salary is 12% behind the minimum salary required to live comfortably in Nashville.

10In 2023, Metro HR introduced a new metric to the methodology of determining employee salary proposals; the Employment Cost Index (ECI). In years prior, the Consumer Pricing Index (CPI) was utilized. As demonstrated above, the ECI underperformed significantly at 4.5%, while the CPI was at 8.3% last year. This year, Metro has excluded the ECI which is outperforming at 4.6%, while the CPI is at 3.8%; 0.3% more than Metro HR’s current COLA proposal.

11In 2023, the COLA offered to Metro employees was 3.3% below CPI, the metric traditionally used to evaluate employee pay. In 2024, Metro is offering a COLA that is 0.3% below CPI and 1.1% below ECI. The FOP proposes that the Civil Service Commission amend the 3.5% COLA proposal to 5%, reflecting a 1.5% increase.

Salary Comparison Study2024 Nashville FOP