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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Any Room For Negotiation?

Posted: 12/1/2019 10:10:02 PM EDT

I'm leaving the corporate world, where everything is up for negotiation, for a job as a patrol officer. I don't want to put the cart ahead of the horse, but want to be prepared for when I do get offered a job.

Is there any room for negotiation on starting salary? Everywhere I've looked appears to have a salary step program with standard salaries correlated to years of service. Is it unheard of to say skip first year salary and start at year two or three salary? Im fairly certain health and retirement benefits im stuck with.

My woman got hired by the state as a conservation officer. She was able to negotiate a higher starting salary based off her then current salary as an accountant. I will be applying for local agencies.

Thanks all

Posted: 12/1/2019 10:50:17 PM EDT

[#1]

This will be dependent on the agency. Having said that my agency dose not. Every one starts on step 1.

Posted: 12/1/2019 11:04:10 PM EDT

[#2]

is her new job in the same state agency as her old job?

My exwife is federal and can always use her current level to transfer into a higher level.

Not so much in police work. No agency by me, big or small, will let you start at anything other than starting salary.

Even with our new laterals, new guy with 7 years at his current agency took a pay cut to start at our place. Only his sick time transferred in. He started over on salary, vacation, seniority, etc.

Posted: 12/1/2019 11:10:34 PM EDT

[#3]

As a general rule...no. That will vary from agency to agency but the ones I know of who will start you at a higher pay rate, offer to start you at a higher step due to prior experience. Since you don't have prior experience, you'll start at the bottom of the pay scale. Some may offer some extra pay due to college degrees...but again that will vary from agency to agency.

Posted: 12/2/2019 2:26:17 AM EDT

[#4]

Quoted:
I'm leaving the corporate world, where everything is up for negotiation, for a job as a patrol officer. I don't want to put the cart ahead of the horse, but want to be prepared for when I do get offered a job.

Is there any room for negotiation on starting salary? Everywhere I've looked appears to have a salary step program with standard salaries correlated to years of service. Is it unheard of to say skip first year salary and start at year two or three salary? Im fairly certain health and retirement benefits im stuck with.

My woman got hired by the state as a conservation officer. She was able to negotiate a higher starting salary based off her then current salary as an accountant. I will be applying for local agencies.

Thanks all

View Quote

Never heard of any dept actually negotiating starting pay with anyone. At my place if you are a lateral to our dept we will start you higher than step one based on your amount of time in LE at another dept. But its based on a set scale and everyone who meets the criteria for a lateral step bump gets it. BUT even if you come in with 5 years experience (we top at 5 years) you will only start at our step 3.

J-

Posted: 12/2/2019 3:45:15 PM EDT

[#5]

LE is almost exclusively unionized. The only thing that gets negotiated is your Union contract with the PD.

What do you think the people that have been working a few years would say if you started at their current salary without putting in the time?

Posted: 12/2/2019 8:24:47 PM EDT

[#6]

You're not going to skip salary steps unless you're coming from another agency as a lateral.

Posted: 12/3/2019 12:08:12 AM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:
I'm leaving the corporate world, where everything is up for negotiation, for a job as a patrol officer. I don't want to put the cart ahead of the horse, but want to be prepared for when I do get offered a job.

Is there any room for negotiation on starting salary? Everywhere I've looked appears to have a salary step program with standard salaries correlated to years of service. Is it unheard of to say skip first year salary and start at year two or three salary? Im fairly certain health and retirement benefits im stuck with.

My woman got hired by the state as a conservation officer. She was able to negotiate a higher starting salary based off her then current salary as an accountant. I will be applying for local agencies.

Thanks all

View Quote

Negotiation is not a thing in the .gov world. You either start at step 1, or you lateral in and fit in the schedule where you belong. Salary/benefits is fixed in the .gov world. You may be able to get extra training pay, shift differential etc, but if you are coming in expecting to negotiate police work WILL NOT be for you. Exceptions may be contract kind of positions, county administrator, city administrator etc.

Posted: 12/3/2019 12:20:08 AM EDT

[#8]

Quote History

Quoted:
You're not going to skip salary steps unless you're coming from another agency as a lateral.

View Quote

This. You are looking at step 1

Posted: 12/3/2019 8:16:11 AM EDT

[#9]

So I assumed correctly. I was not coming in expecting to negotiate, just didn't want to leave anything on the table and don't want to be the recruit who asks.

It looks like I'll get a two percent bump due to having a four year degree, shift differential, all the ot a boy could ask for and 20 days paid vacation.

Posted: 12/3/2019 12:20:14 PM EDT

[#10]

20 days paid vacation? You might want to read your contract to make sure about that. Not saying it can't happen but most new hires get a week after their first year of probation. I'll be lucky to get 20 days after 20 years.

Posted: 12/3/2019 6:47:20 PM EDT

[#11]

You're looking to leave the private sector and go to work for the government which doesn't really make concessions like that very often. With my current agency there's a two step difference upon hire for most of us based on experience and qualifications but that's about it. When I was a patrolman there was no negotiating at all. The pay was what it was. It was my call whether to take it or leave it. Although there was a virtually guaranteed annual promotion schedule so that was nice. If you do this just be prepared to enter a world that you are completely unfamiliar with. It can take a little adjusting

Posted: 12/3/2019 6:54:05 PM EDT

[#12]

Quote History

Quoted:
20 days paid vacation? You might want to read your contract to make sure about that. Not saying it can't happen but most new hires get a week after their first year of probation. I'll be lucky to get 20 days after 20 years.

View Quote

Sort of depends on the agency. When I was a street cop I got hired within the first six months of the year so I was fronted 10 days of vacation for the rest of the year plus all regular holidays +2 floating holidays I could use whenever. If you got hired from July until the end of the year you only got one week until the upcoming January but upon January 1 you were fronted the full two weeks for the rest of the year. This was day one upon hire, before the academy, literally the first day you walked in the door. Every New Year's Day every officer was fronted their entire leave balance for the upcoming year. They actually took pretty good care of us on that. But the overall salary was shit

Posted: 12/3/2019 10:49:14 PM EDT

[#13]

Quote History

Quoted:
You're not going to skip salary steps unless you're coming from another agency as a lateral.

View Quote

This.

Your experience and salary in another profession means jack. The fact you even asked about negotiating a salary that would put you above others who have actually earned it does not reflect well upon your attitude or temperament for the job, in my opinion.

Posted: 12/4/2019 3:03:14 AM EDT

[#14]

Quote History

Quoted:
20 days paid vacation? You might want to read your contract to make sure about that. Not saying it can't happen but most new hires get a week after their first year of probation. I'll be lucky to get 20 days after 20 years.

View Quote

At twenty years, between holidays vacation and personal leave I was getting ten weeks of paid leave time a year. Being able to take that time was another story. Even as the senior deputy I wasn't getting more than a block of time of a single week off at some point during the year. I'd take random days off throughout the year, just to use it and not lose it. There was no cashing out of unused time

Posted: 12/4/2019 6:44:55 AM EDT

[#15]

Quote History

Quoted:

At twenty years, between holidays vacation and personal leave I was getting ten weeks of paid leave time a year. Being able to take that time was another story. Even as the senior deputy I wasn't getting more than a block of time of a single week off at some point during the year. I'd take random days off throughout the year, just to use it and not lose it. There was no cashing out of unused time

View Quote

10 weeks? Impressive. I might make it to 40 days total if I make it to retirement.

Posted: 12/4/2019 6:50:04 AM EDT

[#16]

Quote History

Quoted:
10 weeks? Impressive. I might make it to 40 days total if I make it to retirement.

View Quote

Twelve paid holidays
Five personal days
The rest was paid vacation time based on seniority. I was maxed out on that
The personal time was for short illnesses. If you had something seriously wrong with you that wasn't work related, you dipped into a bank of disability time that grew as you were more senior. I think I maxed that out at 920 hours. If you used any of those hours they were renewed after six months.
That also doesn't include my paid military leave while I was still in the Guard.

Posted: 12/4/2019 7:55:37 AM EDT

[#17]

Quote History

Quoted:
Sort of depends on the agency. When I was a street cop I got hired within the first six months of the year so I was fronted 10 days of vacation for the rest of the year plus all regular holidays +2 floating holidays I could use whenever. If you got hired from July until the end of the year you only got one week until the upcoming January but upon January 1 you were fronted the full two weeks for the rest of the year. This was day one upon hire, before the academy, literally the first day you walked in the door. Every New Year's Day every officer was fronted their entire leave balance for the upcoming year. They actually took pretty good care of us on that. But the overall salary was shit

View Quote

That's how they did for us, they even let you use a few days from the upcoming year if you ran short at the end of the year. At 5 years on I was getting 45 days a year. (27 regular vacation days and 18 extra days because of the steady M-F schedule of the unit I was in)

Posted: 12/4/2019 2:22:46 PM EDT

[#18]

I'm 22 years in and I only get 38 paid days a year off (25 vacation days and 13 holidays/personal)

Posted: 12/5/2019 9:20:06 AM EDT

[#19]

Even in the federal system, there is usually a little room for negotiation. But, that comes with a very important caveat.

You have to be someone with some experience, or a skill set, that they really need.

I knew a guy who came on in our agency, jet plane pilot certified, at a time when we were really short of jet certified pilots, who got them to bump his starting salary up two grades over what the published range for new hires was.

Posted: 12/5/2019 10:05:38 AM EDT

[#20]

Quote History

Quoted:
20 days paid vacation? You might want to read your contract to make sure about that. Not saying it can't happen but most new hires get a week after their first year of probation. I'll be lucky to get 20 days after 20 years.

View Quote

The city I started with gave 10 and 10. Ten days taken Jan-June, and ten days taken from July-Dec.

Posted: 12/24/2019 12:00:08 AM EDT

[#21]

No negotiation at my agency. You get accrual rates for annual and sick time, so you could get 96 hours of vacation first year, (2.5 weeks), and you can carry over 360 hours a year. Sick time, same accrual, and you keep it all. Currently I am sitting on 352 vacation hours, and 2200 hours of sick time. 19 years on.

Arizona Bi-weekly Accrual Credits in Hours for Covered Employees:Credited Service
Hours

Bi-Weekly accrual rate
Fewer than 3 years

3.70
3 years but fewer than 7 years

4.62
7 years but fewer than 15 years

5.54
15 years or more

6.47

Posted: 12/24/2019 12:09:22 AM EDT

[#22]

Quote History

Quoted:
So I assumed correctly. I was not coming in expecting to negotiate, just didn't want to leave anything on the table and don't want to be the recruit who asks.

It looks like I'll get a two percent bump due to having a four year degree, shift differential, all the ot a boy could ask for and 20 days paid vacation.

View Quote

The recruit that asks? The hell is your department at? Fort Benning?

To answer your question, typically no. As another member posted LE is almost always unionized. You only negotiate what the union tells you.

Posted: 1/4/2020 3:09:39 PM EDT

[#23]

Whether your department is unionized or not depends heavily on what part of the country you are in.
Around here, very few have any sort of collective bargaining agreement.
My department used to start new hires a few boxes higher if they had experience coming in, but now all the new guys start at box one regardless.
The only position with any sort of negotiation power is the Chief.

Posted: 1/5/2020 1:22:06 AM EDT

[#24]

Quote History

Quoted:
LE is almost exclusively unionized. The only thing that gets negotiated is your Union contract with the PD.

What do you think the people that have been working a few years would say if you started at their current salary without putting in the time?

View Quote

Except there are entire states without unions.

Posted: 1/7/2020 2:07:31 AM EDT

[#25]

Quote History

Quoted:

Except there are entire states without unions.

View Quote

and the likelihood of walking in and negotiating anything is slim to none.

J-

Posted: 1/8/2020 2:35:09 AM EDT

[#26]

Just wanted to circle back around.

OP entering public service, you are going to be lucky to be able to negotiate a 1-2% cola per year, as a part of a CBA, without people scoffing.

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[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Any Room For Negotiation?

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