Finding enough money to attract and retain state law enforcement officers promises to be the top priority for a Georgia House “working group” on public safety that held its first meeting Tuesday.
House Speaker Jon Burns, who formed the committee earlier this year, read a passage from Georgia’s Constitution in his opening charge to the panel.
“Protection to person and property is the paramount duty of government and shall be impartial and complete,” Burns, R-Newington, said in an opening charge to the committee, which met at the new Georgia Department of Public Safety Headquarters in southeast Atlanta.
Rep. Bill Hitchens, R-Rincon, the working group’s chairman and a Georgia State Patrol retiree, said trooper salaries in the Peach State are not keeping pace with what surrounding states pay. At the same time, retirement benefits have declined substantially from the 90% of full salary he was awarded when he left the patrol.
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“This is an issue of supply and demand,” he said. “In order to get our supply, we have to pay for it.”
The fiscal 2024 state budget, which takes effect this weekend, includes pay raises of $4,000 to $6,000 for state law enforcement officers. But Burns said the working group needs to look not only at trooper salaries but other aspects of the job designed to make law enforcement more attractive.
“Compensation and benefits, training, equipment … are legislative solutions that will be part of your conversation,” he said. “For our citizens to feel safe in their homes, where they work, and where they play is your task.”
Hitchens said his first step will be sending out a survey to state agency heads to find out which agencies have law enforcement personnel on their payrolls.
“It would give us a starting point about who we have and what they do,” he said.
Besides Hitchens, the working group includes Reps. Mandi Ballinger, R-Canton; J Collins, R-Villa Rica; Eddie Lumsden, R-Armuchee; and Brian Prince, D-Augusta.
