By Leilani Haywood
Tribune Reporter

Lee’s Summit Police rank at the bottom compared to other city municipalities in pay. Rick Inglima, President of the Fraternal Order of the Police calls the recent Springsted compensation study that Lee’s Summit City Council spent $2.5 million on “fraudelent” and “ludricous.”

In front of a crowd of Lee’s Summit police officers, firefighters and public safety workers, Inglima rebuked the City Council for “kicking this can down the road.”

“The time to fix this problem is now,” says Inglima. “Since I’ve been here the city has done three to four compensation studies that all say we’re behind in compensation.” Inglima presented several charts demonstrating Lee’s Summit Police (LSPD) starting pay was at the bottom compared to municipalities such as Blue Springs, Independence, Kansas City, KS; Kansas City, MO and Lawrence, KS.

LSPD sergeants starting salaries were $11,240 or 16.35% below average. For top pay for police officers and starting pay for sergeants LSPD ranked #13 out of 15 cities. For top pay for sergeants, LSPD ranked in the average however the most tenured Sergeant had 34.5 years with LSPD including 27 years as a Sergeant. The highest paid Sergeant has 29 years with LSPD and earns $8,031 below the yearly top pay.

Inglima wasn’t on the agenda but was concerned about section 4 of a proposed ordinance to adopt pay plan and schedule in the Springsted study. Section 4 of the proposed ordinance states: “That the City Manager is hereby directed to offer an annualized sum for salary adjustments, utilizing the same methodology as for unrepresented employees, to represented employee groups more specifically: 1. The Fraternal Order of Police – $282,173; 2. International Association of Fire Fighters – $1,991,644; and, 3. International Association of Machinists – $364,760.”

Instead, Inglima said the council should disegard the Springsted study and allocate $1.8 million to the Fraternal Order of Police, $900,000 to the International Association of Firefighters, $500,000 to the International Association of Machinists and $1.8 million to core representative employees. City Council initially voted to defeat the ordinance until Councilman Diane Forte made a motion for City staff to return the measure for consideration at a future meeting.