The starting salary for a city police officer is $15.18 per hour. Starting firefighters in Brunswick earn about $27,000 annually, which comes out to less than $10 an hour in the 53-hour work week of 24 hours on and 48 hours off.
Many of the newly trained police officers and firefighters quickly leave for higher salaries with the county or other agencies, leaving police chief Kevin Jones and fire chief Randy Mobley with nothing to show for their investment of time and money.
“Our biggest concern is the attrition rate,” Jones said Monday during a city commission planning session for 2016. “So that’s something I will be looking for is an increase in our base salary. We just lose way too many people.”
The police department lost 20 police officers in 2015, although four were terminated, Jones said.
One young officer signed an agreement to remain on the force for two years, but broke his contract to go work for the Southeast Georgia Health System police, Jones said.
“He owes us $12,500,” Jones said.
Brunswick Fire Chief Randy Mobley said his department had a rough year, too. “We lost 28 percent of our folks in 2015,” Mobley said. “I had one captain tell me the other day, the most senior guy on his shift has four years.”
But the veteran Brunswick fire chief has gotten accustomed to seeing firefighters leave town for better paying departments with better benefits.
“We’re getting used to it by now,” Mobley said. “We’ve been losing 25 percent of our guys annually for years now. It’s been that way. We’re a training ground for firefighters, no doubt about that.”
Jones struggles to keep his force up to staff. He presently has 63 sworn officers, with nine in training. A full force is 75 officers.
Despite this, the crime rate in Brunswick has dropped in the past year, he said.
“To lose 20 officers in one year is just unthinkable,” Jones said.
Mobley and Jones both would like to see starting salaries raised in 2016, with more pay grade increases to retain experienced officers. It would save money in the long run, they say.
“If you would just stop the turnover rate, then you would save a lot of money,” Mobley said.
The top goal of the commission is to see ground broken on the proposed hotel at the Oglethorpe block at the entrance to downtown. The hotel’s builder will be in town later this week to go over plans for the hotel and meet with local business leaders and elected officials.
Las Vegas developer John McDonald will discuss his plans for the hotel during a meeting at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce, city manager Jim Drumm said. McDonald also will be in town Thursday to discuss his plans, which call for a 125-room hotel at least four stories tall that would include a rooftop bar and restaurant. It would be run by the Wyndham Hotel Group.
“We all want to get the information at the same time so we can actually come together and ask those questions that are important to us,” mayor Cornell Harvey said.
Commissioners expressed eagerness for more action during the planning session, which was held in the second floor conference room at Brunswick City Hall, 601 Gloucester St. The $14 million proposal to give Mary Ross Waterfront Park a total family friendly makeover might as well start this year with repairs to the dock, commissioners agreed.
The project to shore up the dock’s foundation for vehicular traffic on top will cost approximately $300,000, said Garrow Alberson, city engineer. City officials will look for that money in grants, a lawsuit settlement with Honeywell Inc., and in the budget, officials said.
In the meantime, Alberson told commissioners he would begin seeking bids for engineering plans for the work.
“I’m getting prices on the engineering now,” Alberson told commissioners. “It should take 90 days on that, and then bid it and then get a contractor out there.”
He said 2016 should also see work begin on the “gateway” welcome sign and landscape features at U.S. 17 and Gloucester Street. “We’re going to look at the north scope of that, and we’ll hopefully get that moving by the end of the month.”
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