Hendersonville approves pay raises for entire police department
Starting immediately, Hendersonville officers up to sergeants will get a 10% raise, lieutenants and commanders a 7.5% raise, and a 2.5% bump for both the assistant chief and chief.
The idea is simple and now common for many police departments: better recruitment, more retention.
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'Not only were we not competitive, but the crop [of candidates] was thinning,' explained Hendersonville Mayor Jamie Clary, who has been pushing this initiative for some time. 'We noticed we weren't competitive with some of the agencies that we were losing police officers to.'
Hendersonville gave raises to some of their police last year. Since then, Clary said neighboring cities of their size have done the same.
Going forward, a post-certified Hendersonville police officer will make just under $63,000 a year. That's more than the same officer with Gallatin police [around $53,000] and just less than Metro police [over $64,000].
'I think I can speak for every officer in the department: it helps them with family life, it helps them because they put in a lot of hard work to protect this city,' said Houston Hackett, an officer with the Hendersonville Police Department (HPD).
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'I feel like I fulfilled a commitment,' said the Clary. 'I think the most important objective for a city government is to protect the people that are there. And we can't do that if we have open police positions.'
To that point, Clary said HPD currently has 16 open positions, with just four applicants interested. As a result, he said the city prioritized getting raises for the police department, above other city first responders.
But what about the other first responders in Hendersonville? Are they also in line for pay raises? Mayor Clary said he's open to that conversation.
'I have to look at what is the capacity of the city to make these adjustments, what is the interest in our residents in increasing, possibly, property taxes,' he expressed. 'And then I have to look, so what's the benefit?
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Meanwhile, some aldermen believe the discussion should be next on their list.
'There's no discussion, because it's not in [the agenda] about our fire, our public works, our administration, all the rest of our staff,' said Alderman Jeff Sasse. 'So I just wanted to publicly say, right now, my commitment to the entire staff: we're going to take a hard look at this at this next budget cycle.'
Hendersonville will utilize their city sales tax to fund the police pay bump.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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