Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland updated his office’s search for a new, permanent Memphis Police Department director in his weekly note to voters and clarified his position on how much a new director should be paid.
Strickland said he will likely soon sign a contract with the International Association of Chiefs of Police to conduct a national search for a new director. The search will cost between $30,000 and $40,000 and should be completed in about the next four months, he said.
The salary for a new director has “sparked media conversation in recent days,” Strickland said, “so I wanted to discuss it with you directly.”
“First, I have not formally proposed a $250,000 salary for our new police director,” Strickland said. “I have only said that our surveys of the market, both formal and informal, have told us it could take as much as that to find the best possible candidate.”
He offered up this sampling of police director salaries in other cities:
San Francisco, $307,000
Houston, $275,000
Chicago, $260,000
Oakland, $251,113
Seattle $250,000
Atlanta, $241,000
Detroit, $225,000
Baltimore, $212,000
He finished his notes on the police salary saying Memphis deserves the best.
“Police director is the most important job in city government,” he said. “I won’t allow our capacity to pay that man or woman’s salary to be a hindrance in finding the person who can best tackle our crime problem.”
