'We've been bleeding officers': Fairfax police union
says officers need to be paid better
by Nick Minock
Thursday, September 23rd 2021
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) — The
President of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association’s Fairfax County Chapter
is sounding the alarm.
“We’ve been bleeding officers left and
right,” said Ali Soheilian.
Soheilian and the union’s board sent a letter to the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisor’s this week warning the Fairfax County Police
Department is more than 100 officers short and they are losing more by the
week. They are calling this is a staffing crisis.
The union said the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors needs to
take positive action.
In their letter, the Virginia PBA said patrol officers are
pressed to more each day while they cover the workload of officers who have
left. All of that while violent crime is rising rapidly in their jurisdiction,
according to their letter.
The letter claims morale is down at the police department and
officers in Fairfax County are leaving the department for better paying jobs at
police departments in nearby Prince William and Loudoun Counties.
The PBA board is requesting the Fairfax County Board of
Supervisors to take swift action by approving better pay for officers.
“When you tell these officers that they are
not worth the money you are basically telling them what you value and what you
don’t value as a county board of supervisors,” said Soheilian. “It’s a quick
fix. They’ve skipped over us with cost of living adjustments and market rate
adjustments raises in terms of 14 percent over the years.”
“If something doesn’t change eventually, they are going to have
to stop staffing certain positions,” Soheilian added. “Your specialty units
that investigates major crimes might be impacted. We might have to pull
officers from different resources to staff the street because what’s happening
is you’re going to get overwork, tired officers that are responding. It could
impact your response times as we’ve seen it impact agencies across the nation.”
7News took these staffing concerns to the Fairfax County Board
of Supervisors Chairman.
“I don’t see this as a Fairfax County
problem. Clearly it’s a nationwide problem,” said Jeffrey McKay.
McKay acknowledged the staffing challenges at the police
department and defended what the county currently pays its officers.
“I believe we are very competitive to our peer jurisdictions and
that’s something we look at annually in our budget process,” he said. “We’ve
been focused on recruitment efforts We never stop looking at pay. We want to
recruit the best officers. Our board will continue to do what we always do
which is look at this every year and make sure Fairfax County remains
competitive in police pay.”