Many law enforcement agencies in Louisiana had informed their employees that the Municipal Police Officers Supplemental Pay Board of Review had decided to begin sending a lump sum each month to the various law enforcement agencies around Louisiana whose employees receive Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay starting January 1, 2024. Those municipalities would then be responsible for disbursing the funds owed to each employee entitled to receive Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay.
In short, implementation of the new distribution plan will be delayed to the start of Louisiana’s next fiscal year. The letter states that will be July 31, 2024. As a result, all law enforcement employees who receive Louisiana Police and Marshal Supplemental Pay will continue to receive those payments as usual until July 31, 2024.
For those who are interested, this was made possible by Louisiana Act No. 637, which started out as HB 918, Supplemental Pay for Certain Law Enforcement Officers introduced by State Representative William “Bill” Wheat, Jr., a Republican representing Tangipahoa Parish. Louisiana Act. No. 637 changed La. R.S. 33:2218.4, which required the Secretary of Public Safety and Corrections to write and sign a check for supplemental pay to each recipient to La. R.S. 40:1667.3(B) only states that “the Department of Public Safety and Corrections shall issue payments in accordance with the privisions of this Part.” The statute governing payment of State Supplemental Pay no longer states how it is to be distributed. Therefore, it can be sent to the municipality instead of directly to the officer entitled to the payment.
There will be times when the FOP will send you an email or text message asking you to send an email to your elected representatives regarding legislation that the FOP has decided it is in favor of or opposed to. Normally, it only takes a couple of clicks to send an email to your elected representatives because we use a service called Voter Voice. Voter Voice prepares an email for you. You can edit the email if you want. Voter Voice will then send the email to the proper recipients. So, even if you are not sure who your elected officials are, you can contact them using Voter Voice. Be on the lookout for emails regarding legislation and the use of Voter Voice. The number of people Legislators receive phone calls and emails from on certain issues can be the determining factor in how the elected representative votes on that issue.
The Louisiana FOP also hired a lobbyist several years ago to represent our interest in Baton Rouge. Joe Mapes of Mapes and Mapes is the lobbyist for the Louisiana FOP and does an excellent job for us. Hopefully, Joe will be around to help us for quite a while.
You can also check on the Louisiana FOP’s legislative priorities on its website at www.louisianafop.com. In New Orleans, Crescent City Lodge #2 often discuss important legislative issues in its newsletters. If you are an FOP member who is interested in being part of the Legislative Committee for your Lodge or for the State Lodge, talk to your Lodge Officers and they should be able to fill you in.
This article contains profane language. If you are offended by profane language, you may want to skip this one. I do not want to offend anyone.
If you have never heard of Will Aitchison, he is an attorney who specializes in police (public safety) legal issues whose company, Labor Relations Information System (LRIS), is in the northwestern part of the United States. Will also puts on seminars for public safety employees, professionals, attorneys, etc. on important issues. For example, LRIS just put on a seminar titled the Advanced Course in Police Discipline and Public Safety Union Leadership in Las Vegas this past November (2023) and will put on a seminar titled Public Safety Union Leadership at the beginning of 2024 in Las Vegas. January and February are good months to be in Las Vegas. Will has also published a number of books, including Interest Arbitration, the Rights of Law Enforcement Officers, the FLSA, a User’s Manual, and other handy books. Finally, Will publishes a podcast once a month that can be found on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Podcasts can also be found on the LRIS website.
I appreciate “Fuck: The Police.” I also appreciate Will for letting those of us who were unaware of the study know about it. There are many law enforcement agencies with policies seeking to forbid profanity altogether. The current policies represent a sea change from the previous notion of including profanity in what was known as “Verbal Judo” — a hands-off way of controlling a situation through words. “Verbal Judo” has fallen out of favor, and more agencies are opting to forbid profanity, which is often recorded on all the cameras law enforcement officers carry while working.
I have handled plenty of cases in different agencies for officers accused of using profanity in the course of an officer’s duties. In the New Orleans Police Department, if an officer uses profanity, it is a violation of Rule 2, Moral Conduct, Paragraph 2, Courtesy, which reads “Employees shall be courteous, civil and respectful in their conduct toward all persons. The use of profane, vulgar, or discourteous gestures or language to or in the presence of any citizen is prohibited. The use of profane, vulgar or discourteous gestures or language either verbal or written by one employee to another employee is prohibited.” Sometimes, they use Rule 3, Professional Conduct, Paragraph 1, Professionalism, which reads “Employees shall conduct themselves in a professional manner with the utmost concern for the dignity of the individual with whom they are interacting. Employees shall not unnecessarily inconvenience or demean any individual or otherwise act in a manner which brings discredit to the employee or the New Orleans Police Department.” Sometimes, an officer could end up charged with both violations, which seems like piling on to me. I represented an officer at a different agency who was charged with Conduct Unbecoming an Officer for using profanity in the car by himself. I have had several cases in New Orleans where officers were charged with one or both of the above violations for using profanity in a police car alone because it was recorded by the in-car camera and someone might see it, or it might have to be presented to a jury. It all seems pretty crazy.
Personally, I think an officer’s use of profanity can be appropriate. At the same time, I do not think officers should ever try to denigrate another person while acting on behalf of his or her agency. Officers should also refrain from attempting to (or successfully) belittle someone while he or she is off duty and there is a nexus between the officer’s action(s) and the officer’s employing agency — officers can be disciplined for that even if he or she is not working at the time.
Anyway, officers are adult men and women who live in our community. I believe they can tell the difference between when it is appropriate to use profane language. For example, it is appropriate to use profane language when the starting quarterback for the Saints is injured during a game. I also firmly believe that our adult police officers who live in our community know when they are too tired to do their jobs and need a nap. Telling officers they are not allowed to work more than 16 hours and 35 minutes in any 24-hour period is ridiculous. They know when they are too tired. I know that when I was a police officer, there were days when I had to work for 16 hours and then go home and pick up kids from school, go shopping, cook dinner, or do other work at home. All the policy really does is tell officers they can only be paid for 16 hours and 35 minutes per day.
To make matters worse, there is an adult who may or may not be a member of our community who is constantly requesting payroll records for our adult police officers and subsequently making complaints on our adult police officers for working too much. In the United States of America, we encourage hard workers. The vast majority of these complaints have been based on mistakes made by the officer, the officer’s supervisor, the Office of Police Secondary Employment, and other human beings. If there is one thing I am certain of, human beings regularly make mistakes and will continue to do so. I am also sure that the complaints being made on police officers every day about working off-duty paid details are about nothing but harassment and the investigations waste hours and hours of time of the officers required to investigate these unfounded, harassing complaints as well as the accused officer and any witness officers required to participate. Please stop wasting everyone’s time. Nobody is double-dipping or stealing from secondary employment employers. You are not an investigative reporter or any kind of watchdog.
I know I ranted a little and definitely drifted off-topic above. I am going to assume that you, the reader, will grant me the rant and off-topic content. It took me at least an hour longer than I wanted to spend writing this because of it. For that, I apologize to my wife. Sorry – I love you.
It used to be a constant struggle for the Crescent City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police to convince the administration, whoever that happened to be at the time, that the men and women of the New Orleans Police Department deserved an opportunity to get this time-and-grade promotion, that the necessary functions were in place to make the promotions, and that making the promotions will have a positive effect on the retention of valued, veteran officers.
These days, we do not have to make those arguments. What we do have to do is remind our members — more than 92% of all NOPD employees — that in order to get promoted, they have responsibilities and that there are deadlines for doing those things.
This past Friday, Dawnella Adams of NOPD Human Resources sent a very informative email concerning SPO promotions via the NOPD.GOV email system. If you are an NOPD Police Officer seeking to be promoted to Senior Police Officer, please take the time to read over this important information. To read the full email sent by Ms. Adams, check your NOPD emails for Friday, November 3, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. Here are the highlights of that email:
Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick is proud to announce online training modules for the promotional position of Senior Police Officer.
Minimum qualification requirements for this application include:
Permanent status as a Police Officer with NOPD.
Three (3) years of experience with NOPD in any combination of Police Officer or Police Officer I.
Successful completion of the current New Orleans Police Academy Police Officer II, III, IV, or Senior Police Officer training program. A letter from the Police Education and Training Division certifying the successful completion of this training must be submitted.
*After the above requirements are met, CLICK HERE.
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER TRAINING PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS:
The Academy has formulated a SPO curriculum that will be delivered in a series of web-based training courses. Candidates are required to complete a total of five interactive courses offered by the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services – COPS Program). The VCPI “E-Learn Center” offers 24/7 access to these courses which include a variety of learning tools, multi-media segments, and exercises.Officers may access this training website on personal time from any computer with
Internet connectivity. The modules can be paused and resumed to the location where discontinued. Participants will be able to print a certificate of training upon successfully passing each course examination.
HERE ARE INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCESSING THE ON-LINE TRAINING (CORRECTED):
Eligible SPO candidates may CLICK HERE to access the VCPI website, CREATE AN ACCOUNT and REGISTER AS A NEW USER. Once registered, you’ll be able to access the Student Dashboard to view and register for Courses and to download evaluations and training certificates.
Upon accessing the E-Learn Center officers will be presented with a menu of 13 Events, Courses and Resources from which to choose. Officers should click on the button REGISTER MYSELF and BEGIN for each of the SPO required training modules listed below.
A tutorial on how to use the commands is provided initially and can be viewed at any time by clicking on the “help” button on the top right of the screen. Officers taking the courses must complete all pages and each tab/insert within each page to be eligible for the certification exam. If at any time you exit the modules, reentry will allow you to go back to the location where you left off.
SUBMITTAL OF TRAINING CERTIFICATES:
Upon completion of the modules and the course exams, you will be able to click on the final section to print the “Certificate.” The five completed certificates (in total) shall be personally delivered to the front desk receptionist at the Police Academy Monday through Friday between the hours of 8AM and 3PM.
DO NOT EMAIL CERTIFICATES.
If you experience any difficulties with the online training, contact Duane Johnson, Academy Curriculum Director,dujohnson@nola.gov.
The Fraternal Order of Police urges all eligible members to visit the VCPI E-Learning Center as soon as possible and to register for the required courses. Each course listed states the course is the 2023 version and lists an End-Date of 12/31/2023 at 11:59pm. We are not sure if that is an actual end-date for course availability, but will check and report back to members.
Here is an outline of the SPO Curriculum as provided in Ms. Adams nopd.gov email:
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER TRAINING PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS:
The Academy has formulated a SPO curriculum that will be delivered in a series of web-based training courses. Candidates are required to complete a total of five interactive courses offered by the Virginia Center for Policing Innovation (sponsored by the U.S. Dept. of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services – COPS Program). The VCPI “E-Learn Center” offers 24/7 access to these courses, which include a variety of learning tools, multi-media segments, and exercises. Officers may access this training website on personal time from any computer with Internet connectivity. The modules can be paused and resumed at the location where they were discontinued. Participants will be able to print a certificate of training upon successfully passing each course examination.
SENIOR POLICE OFFICER CURRICULUM:
I.ETHICAL DECISION MAKING: POLICING WITH PRINCIPLED INSIGHT
Synopsis – EDM explores the practice of decision-making and the ethical principles that support effective policing. EDM stresses that police ethics are not just an afterthought or a means of discouraging bad behavior, with public trust integrity and liability hinging on each and every decision. Ethics are a controlling insight that informs and guides police practitioners from an internal personal capacity while exploring realistic modern-day challenges faced in the policing profession.
Run Time: 2 hours Completion Time: 4 hours
II.COMMUNITY POLICING DEFINED
Synopsis – Provides participants with a basic awareness and understanding of the fundamental principles and best practices of community policing. Describes the practice of community policing while also examining how it can be effectively applied. The course explores partnerships, problem-solving, and organizational transformation as they relate to specific issues and challenges facing today’s law enforcement professionals and the communities they serve.
Run Time: 4 hours Completion Time: 8 hours
III.COMMUNITY POLICING: IMPROVING POLICE EFFICACY AND BUILDING TRUST
Synopsis – Explores how emerging issues necessitate a commitment to the key components of community policing: partnerships, organizational transformation, and problem-solving. The course includes an examination of the current state of policing—locally and nationally— addressing the current and emerging issues that challenge the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies and the well-being of the communities they serve. CPIPEBT challenges participants to explore the principles and practices of community policing as a means of achieving the public safety mission with greater efficiency by gaining and maintaining public trust and engaging the community in the shared responsibility of effective policing.
Run Time: 3 hours Completion Time: 6 hours
IV.PROBLEM-ORIENTED POLICING: THE SARA MODEL
Synopsis – Provides participants with a basic awareness and understanding of the fundamental principles of a common approach used by many community policing agencies to identify and solve repeat crime and community problems: the SARA model. The SARA model allows agencies to scan through multiple data sources, conduct a thorough analysis of a problem through the lens of the crime triangle, formulate a response, and continuously assess the impact of the response to the problem.
Run Time: 1 hour Completion Time: 2 hours
V.CRIME REDUCTION: ENFORCEMENT AND PREVENTION STRATEGIES
Synopsis – Designed to provide participants with an overview of best practices for crime reduction, including guidelines for implementing an organizational model for crime reduction at all levels within a police department. The course offers useful strategies for problem-solving in order to develop immediate, short-term, and long-term responses to crime within a community.
Run Time: 2 hours Completion Time: 4 hours
INSTRUCTIONS FOR ONLINE TRAINING:
Eligible SPO candidates shall access the VCPI website at VCPI (vcpionline.org) and click on the “LOG-IN” screen. From there, click on the “CREATE AN ACCOUNT” heading to register as a new user.
Upon access to the E-Learn Center, you will be prompted to a menu in the left corner titled “STUDENT DASHBOARD,” from there access the “VIEW/REGISTER FOR COURSES” and then click “REGISTER MYSELF” to take each of the SPO required training modules.
A tutorial on how to use the commands is provided initially and can be viewed at any time by clicking on the “help” button on the top right of the screen. The modules are sequential and cannot be opened out of order. Officers taking the courses must complete all pages and each tab/insert within each page to be eligible for the certification exam. If you exit the modules at any time, reentry will allow you to go back to the location where you left off.
SUBMITTAL OF TRAINING CERTIFICATES:
Upon completion of the modules and the course exams, you will be able to click on the final section to print the “Certificate.” The five completed certificates (in total) shall be personally delivered to the front desk receptionist at the Police Academy Monday through Friday between the hours of 8AM and 3PM. DO NOT EMAIL CERTIFICATES.
If you experience any difficulties with the online training, contact Duane Johnson, Academy Curriculum Director, dujohnson@nola.gov.
Dawnella Adams, B.S., M.A Management Development Analyst I New Orleans Police Department Human Resources 715 South Broad St. 1st Floor New Orleans, LA 70119 (504) 658-5400 deadams@nola.gov
I received several calls from members of NOPD Class 196 regarding State Pay. During their application process, members of Class 196 had been told that the City of New Orleans would be paying them the State Supplemental Pay for Law Enforcement during the initial period where the State does not pay State Supplemental Pay to new police officers. This information had been passed on to members of NOPD Class 196 by the Recruitment Division during the background investigation portion of the onboarding procedures.
I made several inquiries on behalf of the members of Class 196 about the status of these payments. The following is the information I received from both the NOPD and the New Orleans Civil Service Department:
The NOPD, the Civil Service Department, and the New Orleans Finance Department’s ADP Liaison are working on the matter. They are apparently waiting on new programming from ADP that would allow the payments to be made. It sounds like the ADP programming is necessary for several reasons and will constitute a significant upgrade to the ADP software.
Apparently, this programming is necessary to process the payments that the members of Class 196 were asking about. I will advise of any new information I receive in this regard.
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On Monday, January 23, 2023, I received a phone call from Superintendent Michelle Woodfork. She wanted to explain that she was committed to paying all NOPD employees the same. So, while it remains possible that all NOPD officers will receive a 10% premium pay and a $26/hr. special rate of pay, Chief Woodfork is not going to allow some people to get the premium pay and the special rate of pay while others do not.
The Crescent City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police is also committed to getting NOPD parade personnel, NOPD District personnel, and law enforcement officers from other agencies who have come to help get Mardi Gras Krewes back on their regular routes. As I said at the end of last week, it sounded like a plan was coming together, and, as Col. John “Hannibal” Smith used to say, “I love it when a plan comes together.” I hope everyone understands the importance of plans coming together.
Today, a Press Release was issued by the Mayor’s Office that appeared to say that some NOPD officers would be paid one thing and another group of NOPD officers would be paid more during Mardi Gras. The Press Release suggested that the officers who were not being paid as much as their peers could work paid details (extra work after their regular 12-hour shifts) to make up the difference. This article appeared on NOLA.COM seemed to confirm that. The FOP said that was unacceptable.
The message to FOP members is that we have not given up yet. Once plans are solidly in place, I will be happy to share details with our members. Until then, we continue to work with the Mayor’s Office, the CAO’s Office, the Director of Personnel, the Civil Service Commission, Superintendent Woodfork, the NOPJF, and others to make sure that Mardi Gras pay is equitable.
On behalf of Sgt. Willie Jenkins and the FOP Labor Committee and myself, Claude Schlesinger, and the Legal Committee let’s work on quelling the rumors that are making the rounds. I will post an update once I can share more.
I know many of you have seen information regarding Mardi Gras compensation coverage due to our staffing shortage.
While I welcome any assistance from outside law enforcement to ensure we have a safe carnival season, my position has been and will always remain all officers should receive equal compensation across the board regardless of their respective duties.
As you are aware Mardi Gras coverage is a collective effort throughout the department which require officers who would normally work their regular police duties to engage in parade coverage which ultimately results in other officers in the districts working additional hours and days to supplement the loss for those assigned to the parade route.
Furthermore, we are bound by our oath of office to protect the entire city despite special events coverage; therefore, all officers should receive equal compensation.
In the coming days, we will finalize all aspects of the 2023 Mardi Gras plan including the compensation levels. I look forward to working with all stakeholders to ensure equity in compensation for all officers.
I will provide an update to the rank and file of NOPD with all information once completed.
I appreciate your hard work in preparing for this upcoming Mardi Gras season.
Thank you for your continued dedication to our community.
On behalf of the Crescent City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, I wanted to thank Sgt. Jerusha Carroll and the 8th District DIU for coming up with a plan to allow DIU units across the City to supplement the platoons without using transfers. Although these moves would have been temporary, transfer denotes some degree of permanency. Sgt. Carroll and her colleagues thought there was a better way and developed a plan which they sent to me. I sent the plan to Sgt. Willie Jenkins, who is co-chairman of the FOP’s Labor Committee with P/O Jeremy Wilcox. Sgt. Jenkins consulted with others and agreed the plan was good. The plan was put in order and hand-delivered to the Superintendent’s Chief of Staff on September 16, 2022.
The plan submitted by Sgt. Jenkins can be found by clicking here.
On September 22, 2022, Sgt. Chris Landry (Ret.), Sgt. Drew Williams, Det. Jeremy Wilcox, Claude Schlesinger, Sgt. Willie Jenkins and I met with New Orleans CAO Gilbert Montaño about a number of issues. Since several of us had been involved in discussions with active officers about the anticipated transfer of detectives, we made that the first item on the agenda. CAO Montaño expressed that he thought any moves involving detectives would be temporary and that nobody would lose any pay as a result of these temporary moves. We explained that temporary or not, the special rate of pay for being in a detective assignment would not travel with the officer to a non-detective position.
It can pay off to get involved or share your ideas. In this instance, Sgt. Carroll and the 8th District DIU shared their plans to supplement the platoons without resorting to transfers. We made sure the Superintendent’s Office was aware of that plan.
If the story ended there, it would already have a happy ending. If the plan is implemented by the Superintendent, then it would be an even happier ending. So, thanks to Sgt. Carroll and her Detectives. If we continue to work together, maybe we can change the old saying 1 step forward and 2 steps back to just 2 steps forward. Thanks to Mr. Montaño as well, we can tell when someone is really listening.
On 8-16-22, the Civil Service Department released the list of scores achieved by candidates for the position of Police Lieutenant. The list can be downloaded by clicking “Download” immediately below.
These scores will count for 1/2 of each candidate’s composite score pursuant to CAO Policy Memo 143(R).
Page 4 of CAO Policy Memo 143(R) explains how the composite score is calculated with one glaring omission — the interview score. The interview is scored High, Medium, or Low like the other areas.
We will post the final list as well, once it is available.
I was cutting my grass, listening to the First Thursday podcast. The First Thursday podcast is hosted by Will Aitchison. Once a month, Will talks about legal issues from around the country that impact law enforcement. Will runs the Labor Relations Information System which tracks issues related to collective bargaining and discipline for law enforcement and fire personnel. Will is widely respected and I like to listen to his podcast every month. Will also wrote The Rights of Law Enforcement Officers, which is a fantastic book on many of the issues we attorneys deal with regularly here in New Orleans. I have had the opportunity to meet Will and hear him speak. I am comfortable saying that Will knows what he is talking about.
At about 45:00 into the July First Thursday podcast, Will started talking about a case involving Sgt. Willie Jenkins. I knew that case at once. It was one that Ted and Claude won. The win got Willie 5 days of pay back. We really win more than we should, statistically speaking.
The Crescent City Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police is working on putting together a prep class for the upcoming NOPD Captain’s Exam. That being said, time is short. We expect the test to be given in August of this year, which doesn’t leave us much time to schedule prep classes. We will certainly share the information with everyone once the dates and locations are cemented. In the meantime, below are videos created with Capt. Louis Dabdoub. Louie’s method is tried and true and will benefit anyone who is able to put his method to use. Each time NOPD has given a promotion exam and we have arranged for Louie to give this class, I have compared the list of attendees with the promotional register. I don’t have a solid statistical survey that could be introduced in court or anything, but I can assure you that the vast majority of people who took Louie’s class finished on the top of each list. In other words, there were only 2 or 3 people in the top 25 of each list who did not attend Louie’s lectures.
Here are the videos:
Capt. Louis Dabdoub’s promotional exam methodology.
Capt. Louis Dabdoub’s promotional exam methodology (Part 1 of 2).
Capt. Louis Dabdoub’s promotional exam methodology (Part 2 of 2).
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