Nancy Vaughan and Reserve Officers
From John Hammer at The Rhino Times:
The city started paying reserve officers for the first time three years ago at the insistence of then Councilmember Mike Barber. On the present council it is Councilmember Nancy Vaughan’s cause. Police Chief Ken Miller was asked numerous times about the reserve officers, and every time he responded that he saw them as volunteers. He also said that he didn’t know of a single city in North Carolina that paid reserve officers and that Greensboro was unusually lenient in its requirements for reserve officers, only requiring them to work 10 hours a month when most jurisdictions required the equivalent of two shifts a month.
Miller said, “The reserve function in my experience has been a voluntary service.”
Reserve officers are usually retired police officers who want to keep their state law enforcement certification. The city keeps up their training so they can continue to be certified, and in exchange the officers work a few hours every month. As Miller noted, lots of people do volunteer work all over the community.
Vaughan wants reserve officers to be paid, and the council agreed to put the money in next year’s budget. Perkins said during a break that Vaughan really felt strongly about it and that they could have spent the entire retreat arguing about whether reserve officers should be paid or not. Instead, he said, they agreed to let Vaughan have this one and moved on to other topics. It will cost the council about $137,000 to pay the officers for a year.
Perkins is right that past councils have strained over gnats for hours and then swallowed five camels in the 15 minutes before adjourning, but $137,000 here and $137,000 there and pretty soon you’re looking at a substantial tax increase.
Miller, when asked, kept saying that he thought reserves were volunteers but that he would be glad to pay them if that is what the City Council wanted. There is no doubt that Vaughan wants reserve officers to be paid and it appears to keep peace the majority of the council is going to go along.
Why are we paying reserve officers if, by Chief Miller‘s contention, no other city does it? Was Barber and is Vaughan addressing some constituency? I think the citizens require an explanation.
Sounds to me like a compensation dynamic at work. What’s the IRS think ? Are they skirting the spirit of the law with their label of ‘volunteer’ ?
I doubt if there’s any violation of tax laws. It’s probably a small stipend to each officer to cover related expenses. However, if that’s the case, let’s be transparent about it.