17 July 2023
EMPORIA (KSNT) – Emporia City Manager Trey Cocking joined the KSNT 27 News Morning show to speak about the newest pay structure that was recently approved by commission.
Cocking said that the change came about as a daunting realization hit the city.
“Last August, especially in public safety with our police and fire department, we realized we had a real problem,” Cocking said. “We have 41 police officers authorized and we were down to 33 police officers in the department.”
He said the situation with the fire department was not much different.
“…53 firefighters authorized and I think we were hovering around 10 short there,” Cocking said.
In order to solve this issue, Cocking said the city sent people out across the state to observe different pay structures. They also hired a firm out of Wichita, The Arnold Group, to come in and do a “complete analysis of their pay structure.”
“We had to make some pretty significant changes to get new employees through the door,” he said.
Those changes took effect in April of this year.
“We’ve been able to hire two of our former police officers back,” Cocking said.
He said both the police chief and the fire chief have reported that since the change, they’ve been able to recruit efficiently.
“So, I think city commission stepping up and doing that was really great for Emporia,” he said.
As far as community response to the change, Cocking said it has been positive.
“We are climbing back up from where we were,” he said. “It’s a slower process because it takes a little while to get an officer in, to get them trained, to get background checks and that sort of thing. But, we are excited to see that number rising.”
For more details on this story, you can watch the full interview attached above.