Tyler Police Department to offer ‘seniority’ pay to new, experienced hires

TYLER, Texas (KLTV) - The Tyler Police Department is sweetening the pot to attract new hires.

“It’s gotten difficult for everybody to find qualified officers that want to be in this profession for the next 20, 25, 30 years,” Chief of Police Jimmy Toler said.

On Wednesday, the Tyler City Council approved a program to amend the code and allow an officer’s experience to transfer over. Meaning if someone worked for another station for five years, those years will now count at Tyler PD.

“Individuals that have that experience don’t have to take a step backwards with the time that they’ve earned,” Toler said.

The goal is to “put officers on the street faster, they don’t have to go to the academy, or may not have to go through the full training program because of their experience,” Toler said.

The new hires will also match their experience for salary so if someone worked for five years, rather than starting at 0 at Tyler, the experience pay will match. For example, if someone has seven years at another station, rather than starting at around $60,000, the start is about $70,000.

“We get the experience they bring with them. We get the training they’ve received that they can bring into our apartment, but I think the biggest part for us is to make sure that we’re not at a disadvantage to other departments,” Toler said.

“In the past we’d have 50, 60, 70 people that pass the test and go into the next phase of the hiring process, that’s starting to decrease. Last time there were 30 something, by the time they finished physical fitness portion, we had 14 candidates to look at,” Toler said. “We want to get into that pool again since we’ve got to hire twelve, we’d love to have be looking at 70, 80, 90 people that want to be police officers in the City of Tyler.”

To review the salary and benefits, click here.

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