Background on the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act

Summary of the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act

The Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act (H.R. 2510, S. 545) is legislation that has been introduced in Congress aimed at addressing inequities experienced by law enforcement officers in regard to their starting pay and patrol salaries. Presently, there are salary disparities in place not only between departments at the county level, but also between municipalities within the same county.
As a result, the pay differential for officers is vast, which causes many officers in one municipality to leave their positions for higher paying jobs with other municipalities. The purpose of the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act is to ensure competitive salary rates between departments across the state.
In addition, the act would implement requirements regarding salaries for officers in their probationary period in the state of New Jersey. Currently, when officers are in their probationary period, their employers are permitted to pay them as low as $20,000 per year. With such low wages, many officers in their probationary period are unable to make ends meet and provide for their families . In some instances, officers in their 19-week probationary period — which is during their training at the police academy — do not even receive their municipal health benefits or their municipality’s health benefits until they have completed this period.
The Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act would reform these low standards which exist as of now regarding the pay for officers in their probationary period. Due to the low rates that are currently in effect, many officers are forced to look for other employment while they attempt to get by on a patrol salary.
In the past, the federal government has attempted to rectify the issues with regard to law enforcement officer salaries, as discussed above, though has been largely unsuccessful. By introducing the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act, Congress hopes to ensure a fair and honest approach that will even the salary playing field for all law enforcement officers throughout the entire state of New Jersey.

Provisions of the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act

Enacted on December 20, 2020, the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act includes a number of important provisions: Salary and "locality pay" for law enforcement personnel – Federal law enforcement personnel who serve as law enforcement officers or who are performing as law enforcement officers are to receive the same salary rates as Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Secret Service personnel of similar grades who perform law enforcement functions. This does not change other elements of job performance evaluation used by any agency, but ensures that similarly situated personnel are compensated equally. Pay increase – Any employee who completes the one-year probationary period on or before December 20, 2020 is entitled to an increase in pay amounting to double the difference between the base salary rate (without locality adjustment) of such individual on December 20, 2020 (or the day before their completion of the one-year probationary period if that day is before December 20, 2020) and the base salary rate of such employee immediately after December 20, 2020 (or the first day after the completion of the one-year probationary period). If such difference is negative, an officer will receive no pay increase under this provision. An officer whose increase would be greater than the maximum pay for the new position in which he/she is situated shall instead receive an amount equal to the percentage increase or decrease of the Director of Office of Personnel Management pay raise for that year. Probationary status – Probationary status no longer applies at any time during the first two years of an officer’s appointment. Rather, a law enforcement officer may only be removed for cause and with the concurrence of the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. Law enforcement personnel permanent careers by Order – Individuals serving as permanent law enforcement personnel at DOJ on December 20, 2020, are automatically converted to career status as federal employees if otherwise qualified. Reclassification – An individual who was hired as an ATF or Secret Service law enforcement officer on or before October 15, 2000, and completed their one-year probationary period, is automatically reclassified as a Special Agent unless they notify the Department of Justice otherwise. No ATF special agent will be converted to permanent career status unless they have been promoted to GS-11 or the equivalent in CBP or Secret Service. Work shift protections – Federal employees can only be reassigned to a different shift on a scheduled basis and only for four hours out of a seven-day period (Sunday-Saturday) unless given a 24-hour notice. Notification must be in writing. Promotion opportunity – The act allows current law enforcement personnel serving in other locations within federal law enforcement agencies to be considered for promotion to a law enforcement officer position of a higher grade other than Federal Air Marshal without regard to position, branch or geographic location.

Impacts on the Law Enforcement Community

The Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act extends the scope of eligibility for veterans’ preference to law enforcement officers of other Federal agencies, such as the Department of the Interior and the Department of Veterans Affairs, who were separated from a covered law enforcement officer position. Because all Federal law enforcement agencies operate differently, how these changes will be implemented in any given agency is still unclear. It is highly probable that those agencies without clear guidance from OPM, like the Department of Interior, will simply apply the 20-year requirement to all agencies personnel. But it is also possible that the Department of the Interior will take advantage of this change by meritously moving these personnel over to alphabet agencies in order to apply the 20-year requirement. Additionally, one can see that the FBI and CIA may also directly benefit from this policy change. This new law has the potential to impact the law enforcement community nationwide. Most obviously, it will have an affect on the number of general schedule grades available to personnel who are previously assigned to covered Federal law enforcement positions, since they will now be considered to have veterans’ preference. This potentially gives them status over other applicants in consideration for promotion through service-wide competition. Secondarily, the law makes it possible for restrictive agencies to have access to a group of very competitive individuals who might have been previously overlooked. For example, within the Department of the Interior is the Bureau of Indian Affairs which maintains its own police force. Previously, these officers would not be able to be considered on a merit basis along with other qualified applicants for other Federal positions in the Department. This will now be possible, and will become an incentive for those interested in those types of jobs to pursue them, to the benefit of the bureaus involved and the people whom they serve. Those benefits aside, detailed implementation issues remain. OPM is required to issue final regulations on the implementation of this Act no later than August 2018. If OPM is going to base its implementation on existing guidance, the guidance from the Department of Homeland Security, these officers may find themselves subject to the unimproved and sometimes overly burdensome rules established by that Department. Basically, the Department of Homeland Security requires Law Enforcement Officers to submit their applications every time that they are considered for a position, regardless of whether those applications have previously been thoroughly vetted. Whereas federal law requires each federal agency to maintain eligibility lists based on the top three candidates, the Department of Homeland Security prioritizes eligibility lists based on the top-ranked candidate in any given group. The result is that no candidate is ever "entitled" to a promotion. By the plain language of the law, however, it appears that the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act has created entitlement of preference even when agencies merely choose not to use these lists. Notwithstanding these issues, the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act has created a new class of privileged federal employee who will now be many steps ahead of their peers, even if the government does not immediately decide to act on the privilege granted to them. It is hard to say whether this will interfere with the traditional priorities of merit-based management over entitlement.

Policymakers’ Role in the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act

Local and national policymakers play a vital role in promoting and overseeing the implementation of the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act. Their support of this legislation has the potential to ensure that the added benefits offered will be in place for years to come, benefiting thousands of police officers across the country.
One of the Act’s most ardent supporters is U.S. Representative Daniel Lipinski, the Illinois Democrat that has been representing the 3rd congressional district since 2005. Congressman Lipinski sponsored the Act in 2017 and has been advocating for its passage at both the local and national levels. Lipinski is a member of a number of committees and organizations that are relevant to policing, including being the chair of the House Committee on Science , Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology and a member of the Advisory Board of the Caucus on Strengthening America’s Middle Class.
A number of additional U.S. Representatives and Senators have signed on as co-sponsors to the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act. These include:
U.S. Representative Mike Denfield, Michigan
U.S. Representative Robert Wittman, Virginia
U.S. Representative Walter Jones, North Carolina
U.S. Representative Stephanie Murphy, Florida
U.S. Representative Ted Lieu, California
U.S. Representative Thomas Suozzi, New York
U.S. Representative Bill Pascrell, New Jersey
U.S. Representative Elenore Holmes Norton, Washington D.C.
U.S. Representative Michael Quigley, Illinois
U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger, Illinois
National nonprofit organizations and unions also strongly supports the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act. Such organizations include the Fraternal Order of Police and the National Association of Police Organizations.

Public Perceptions and Controversies

The Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act, while widely supported, has had its share of controversies and debates. There has been some criticism regarding the treatment of financial compensation as an aspect of equity, with arguments that equity should be determined by measured public safety risks rather than salary levels. "I think we should look at it with a more global view and not just pay scales. What I’m saying is that the cost of being a police officer in the D.C. area is much more than the scale of salaries," said Howard County Police Chief Gary Gardner, president of the Maryland Chiefs of Police Association. Critics also assert that the law does not go far enough. Richmond Commonwealth Attorney Michael Herring said that the term "equity" should have been more specific, and focused on the costs of policing in a big city. "It should not just address salaries because our police officers make a decent wage," he said. "But it addresses the other factors that make it an inequitable situation to be a policeman." When asked about the new law, Matthew T. Mangino, a former sheriff in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, and now a member of the Pennsylvania Board of Probation and Parole, stated, "While the law may seem like a small step in the right direction its implementation will provide hundreds of police officers with immediate financial benefits. Hopefully in the future more categories of public servants will be deemed worthy of additional pay."
Despite the controversies, the debate surrounding the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act continues to rest upon a similar foundation — the notion that on-duty police officers are put in harm’s way far too often and that they often have their lives ruined by injuries as a result.

Looking Toward the Future: The Legislative Process

As with the previous attempts to pass the Law Enforcement Officers Equity Act, the future outlook of the bill is uncertain. However, there are several possible outcomes that may have a bearing on the future of the legislation. For example, the bill may be lumped into a larger omnibus bill or even incorporated into the next federal budget. There is a chance that a new Republican president may outright veto the bill if it exposes the federal government to more lawsuits after the 2016 elections. This is particularly a concern among Republicans who control both the House and the Senate. However, if there is a change in the administration, it is likely that this bill will be prioritized as one of the hopeful avenues of reaching what is considered an overdue agreement on police officer compensation.
The legislative process may see amendments to the original law that will limit the application of the federal government to non-military affairs. This will help cold the waters with military veterans and the veterans’ associations who are noted for using their lobbying power rather aggressively with respect to any benefit that they see as encroaching on the preferential treatment that they have up to this point .
In the current political climate, it may be more likely than not that a piece of legislation that is as broadly encompassing as this one will be enacted only by having it attached to a larger bill. However, the possibility of it being entirely left on the floors of Congress also exists. It is likely that the recent killings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge, along with the ambush of officers at a domestic violence call in Kansas City, may have made lawmakers more sympathetic to police compensation. Further, the Black Lives Matter protests have caught the ire of some community leaders and citizens who see it as a threat to public safety.
Still, the issue of pay equity is a sensitive one, which complicates the likelihood of passage. The federal government has always been able to avoid having to address pay equity issues because federal employees have only 1 percent of the pay equity disparity to correct. However, any pay equity bill that is passed from here on out will be held up for scrutiny until the pay disparity favoring federal employees is condensed by half to match that of private sector employees.