The natural questions for one to ask are:  What drives the City Council, philosophically, to continually place public safety at risk like this?  What exactly is behind the recruitment and retention problem at the Monrovia P.D.?  Is there really a morale issue at the Police Department, resulting from perceived worth?  Are seasoned veterans, representing over 150 years of experience and training, opting to leave for other agencies?  Are there really that many agencies offering better pay and benefits than Monrovia? 

Unfortunately, as you can plainly see in the chart below, the answer is yes. 

If you were a new academy graduate looking to enter the law enforcement field, a seasoned veteran asking yourself whether to stay with Monrovia, or a seasoned veteran considering whether to lateral to Monrovia, where would you want to go?  What type and caliber of applicant do you think is attracted to a department that is in such constant need?  Do you think that hiring and training standards will have to be lowered?  Or should the department maintain it's current standards until it can no longer serve the community due to lack of manpower?

These issues have been ongoing for years. 

The City Council and The Monrovia Police Officers' Association have a previously agreed upon list of survey cities which are used as a comparison in order to determine fair and competitive compensation for our Police Officers. The City Council chooses to compensate Monrovia Police Officers at the lowest rate, below all other survey cities.

Our valuable police officers are being compensated below average and below every other survey city.  Average is $8,675.00.  The next closest city to Monrovia is South Pasadena with $800/mo. greater compensation!  Monrovia is nowhere even near average pay, let alone being competitive in the job market. Yet we expect them to deliver the highest caliber of service to the city. Is it then any wonder why we are losing these valuable resources to other cities that compensate at competitive rates?  Until the Monrovia City Council understands this simple concept, we will continue to lose police officers to other cities.  These other cities benefit greatly from the Monrovia City Council's financial ineptitude, as we pay tens of thousands to train and qualify each new police officer for them, and fail to make the Monrovia Police Department a place where new applicants would want to come and stay.

We disagree with the City Council in the manner which they wish to calculate compensation when comparing it to our agreed upon survey cities.  The City Council would like to pick and choose what compensation items are considered from each city, in order to make it appear that they are paying the police officers average, plus 5 percent.  They then, unfairly, use this information to try and paint a picture of greedy, selfish and ungrateful police officers demanding more and more.  We simply want to do the reasonable thing and consider the total compensation package being offered by competing cities, as reflected by the above chart.  This only makes sense, and after all, is exactly what officers looking to leave, as well as potential new hires, are considering when they are comparing Monrovia to other potential cities for whom to work and risk their lives.  One must wonder why the City Council chooses to employ such deceptive measures and, in reality, who is really being dishonest, greedy, selfish and ungrateful?

The Monrovia City Council, incredibly, unilaterally imposed a contract upon the Monrovia Police Officers' Association.  We are trying to figure out exactly how they believe this is going to help the situation, improve morale and make current and potential new officers want to work for a city that doesn't appreciate them and imposes unreasonable and unfair contracts upon them.  Do you think this will help our ongoing problems?  Do you think that this is placing public safety as the top priority?  As the City Council's unreasonable tactics continue to whittle away at our police department, you can bet that the resource starved Los Angeles County Sheriff's department would love to take over the law enforcement duties for the City of Monrovia.  Just ask the people living in the unincorporated county areas of Monrovia and Arcadia if that would be a good thing...

How long do you think we can continue in such a manner before service and staffing levels decline to such a point that public safety and quality of life decline while crime rates skyrocket?  It is truly a testament to the dedication, professionalism and hard work of the fine men and women of the Monrovia Police Department that they have been able to maintain quality of service this far, in the face of such deficits and a City Council that doesn't value them.

The City Council is sending a very strong and clear message to our Police Officers as to how much they are valued and their hard work and dedication are appreciated. Morale has suffered greatly, and continues to do so.

The City Council is only willing to compensate at considerably substandard rates. Eventually, considerably substandard rates will result in a considerably substandard police department. It is only a matter of time before we will be forced to lower our hiring and training statndards in order to accommodate the type of police officer candidates that we will attract with such a compensation package.

Evidently this is all that our City Council feels public safety is worth.  Do you?

HELP US MAKE PUBLIC SAFETY THE TOP PRIORITY FOR MONROVIA!