City council agrees to up police pay
BY JAMES C. FALCON
james@nordaknorth.com
A recommendation to increase salaries and hourly wages for the Garrison Police Departments officers was met with approval at the Garrison City Council’s meeting Monday evening.
At the tail end of Monday’s meeting, a review of the Police, Fire Department and Personnel Committees meetings from the month of March was held, at which time the topic was brought up.
It was noted that officer Justine Arrey’s six month probation period ended Dec. 31, 2021. The committee’s recommendation, which was made during their March 10 meeting, was to amend her salary to $41,600, retroactively starting Jan. 1, 2022. Then, at their last meeting of the month on March 31, further discussion revolved around increasing pay for temporary fill-in officers from $21 to $25 per hour.
“What we were calling our part-time officers are really not part-time at all,” said city council member Maria Olson, who is also a member of the committee. She noted they don’t get benefits or continuous hours a month. “We decided to call them temporary officers. Since they don’t get the benefits and are traveling from out of town, we want to raise them to $25 an hour.”
Additionally, an increase in salary for Arrey to $44,680 (from the earlier recommended $41,600), officer James Jabara to $52,000 and police chief Travis Tesch to $69,475, all starting June 1.
Also discussed earlier in the city council meeting:
DL Barkie Construction returned to Garrison and work on the water return line project will resume this week. “They’ll be boring under the tracks this week,” said Garrison Water Treatment Plant supervisor Alan Beyreis. The return line project, which would connect the Garrison Water Treatment Plan to existing dead end lines in southeastern Garrison, started last summer and concluded for the year last autumn. With this work being done, parts of Trooper Avenue will be closed. “I’ve heard four or five days and then I heard longer. It depends on how it goes,” Beyreis said.