Gov. Deal Promises Raise, Training Reform For Ga. Officers

“It will move our state troopers up from the sixth highest paid in the Southeast to the third. Including the 6 percent pay raise earlier this year, our state troopers will have gone from 50th nationally in terms of base salary to 24th,” said Deal.

He said the $79 million needed to fund the raises will be worked out in the amended 2017 and 2018 budgets.

Standing next to House Speaker David Ralston, Deal acknowledged the funding will need legislative approval.

“I’m trusting these guys to back me up,” Deal said, chuckling.

The coming legislative session follows the governor’s high profile vetoes of “religious liberty” and campus firearms laws.

“It should be irrefutable that this is a demonstration that we will put our money where our priorities are,” said Deal.

Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle shared hopes that the state’s pay increase would serve as an example for law enforcement across Georgia.

“I would also challenge local officials as well to examine what your pay scale looks like,” said Cagle.

The raises are part of a larger police reform package that Deal said includes increased mandatory training to earn state law enforcement certification.

GBI Director Vernon Keenan said the raise is a long time coming.

“State law enforcement here are working on the front lines in having to deal with extreme dangers in today’s law enforcement. I think that figure will adequately compensate them,” said Keenan.

The GBI is being relieved of being responsible for overseeing Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) for officers interacting with people experiencing mental health issues.

Deal announced the state’s public safety training center will take on CIT training, which Keenan said currently has a waitlist stretching into 2018. That training remains voluntary for local law enforcement agencies.

The reform package also includes four additional hours of mandatory training, on top of the 11-week course currently required, to be certified to make arrests. Two of those extra hours will be spent on elective classes including “Use of Force and De-escalation Options for Gaining Compliance,” “Fostering Positive Community Relations,” “Introduction to Cultural Competency in Policing,” “Police Legitimacy, Procedural Justice and Community Relations.”

While Deal said the titles of the courses are issues he believes people in and out of law enforcement believe deserve attention, he declined to say whether local and national scrutiny on police shootings had motivated this set of reforms.

The governor said his office will convene a task force to look at the need for changes in police reforms and offer suggestions. The appointments, to be made up of lawmakers, law enforcement and community leaders, are to be announced in the coming weeks.