Salary increase for state agency police officers on hold

The Constitutional Law Committee of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH postponed the discussion on the compliance with the Constitution and legal system of BiH of the Bill amending the Law on Salaries and Benefits in BiH Institutions, as the proposer of this law, MP Šemsudin Mehmedović, did not attend the session, writes Patria.

The session of the House of Representatives will be held tomorrow, but without this item on the agenda.

- I could not make it to the Committee because I had a scheduled meeting in which I am the chairman, but I will not be absent, and at the next session, we could have this proposal – says Mehmedović.

Otherwise, the proposed amendments would increase the salaries of police officers in state-level agencies, which are unjustifiably lower compared to their colleagues at lower levels.

We remind you that police officers in the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), the Directorate for the Coordination of Police Bodies (DKPT), and the Border Police of BiH have salaries lower than those of police officers at other levels by up to 500 KM, and this injustice could be rectified thanks to the proposal of MP Šemsudin Mehmedović, who submitted the Bill amending the Law on Salaries and Benefits in BiH Institutions to the parliamentary procedure, writes the news agency Patria.

In the reasons for adopting this law, Mehmedović stated that police officers employed in law enforcement agencies were disadvantaged when the Law on Salaries and Benefits of Employees in BiH Institutions was adopted, given that they were assigned the lowest coefficients without salary grades for jobs with the same level of education compared to employees and civil servants.

- In this regard, it is necessary to determine the coefficients for police officers from the rank of police officer to the rank of chief inspector more fairly, i.e., to equalize the coefficients of police officers with the coefficients of employees and civil servants – it is further stated.

Otherwise, according to the current Law in BiH institutions, employees with secondary education have a coefficient of 1.40 to 1.60, and a police officer has 1.29! In practice, this means that even a secretary in some institution has a higher salary than a police officer at the state level!?

- Considering the complexity, stress, and danger of police work, the Union of Police Bodies in BiH proposes amending Article 18 of the Law on Salaries and Benefits in BiH Institutions, in such a way that for police officers from the rank of police officer to the rank of senior sergeant, coefficients are determined – police officer 1.40, senior police officer 1.55, sergeant 1.70, senior sergeant 1.90 – the proposal states.

We remind you that an increase in salaries for police officers of DKPT, SIPA, and GP to bring them in line with members of FUP, as well as MUP KS, was promised in June 2016 by Denis Zvizdić, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, and Dragan Mektić, Minister of Security of BiH. Of the announced commitment to increase the salaries of police officers at the state level, only insufficient effort and disappointment among members of DKPT, SIPA, and GP remained.

Then, on August 18, the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted decisions on the amount of the base for calculating salaries of employees in BiH institutions and on the amount of annual leave allowance in BiH institutions for 2017.

The base amount for salary calculation was determined at 475.69 KM, and the allowance at 300.00 KM, which means they remain at the 2016 level, in accordance with the BiH Council of Ministers' policy on limiting public spending on salaries and benefits of employees in BiH institutions.

This also applies to police officers, and as Patria learns, the salary increase for DKPT police officers did not happen at that time because one proposal also included an increase in salaries for commissioned police officers, which would have required significantly higher budget allocations.

In BiH, police officers, inspectors, and the director of the Federal Police Administration are the highest paid, with salaries ranging from 1,100 KM, which police officers receive, to over 4,000 KM, which the director and some inspectors receive. The difference in earnings also exists in cantons, where salaries range between 700 and 1,200 KM, while some police commissioners, like the one in the Una-Sana Canton, receive up to 3,600 KM.