Mehmedović's Proposal: Injustice Must Be Rectified and Salaries of State-Level Police Officers Increased

Police officers in state-level agencies, specifically in the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), the Directorate for Coordination of Police Bodies (DKPT), and the BiH Border Police, have salaries lower than police officers at other levels by up to 500 KM. This injustice could be rectified thanks to the proposal by MP Šemsudin Mehmedović, who has submitted a Bill on Amendments to the Law on Salaries and Benefits in Institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the parliamentary procedure, reports the Patria News Agency.

On November 9th, at the session of the House of Representatives, the deputies of the State Parliament will consider this proposal in the first reading, and the Constitutional-Legal Committee of this House has determined that the proposal is in compliance with the Rules of Procedure of the House of Representatives.

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 positions with the same level of education compared to employees and civil servants.

- In this regard, it is necessary to more fairly determine the coefficients for police officers from the rank of police officer to the rank of chief inspector, 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, while a police officer has 1.29! In practice, this means that even a secretary in some institution has a higher salary than a state-level police officer!?

- Considering the complexity, stress, and danger of police work, the Trade Union of Police Bodies in BiH proposes amending Article 18 of the Law on Salaries and Benefits in Institutions of BiH, 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 DKPT, SIPA, and GP police officers to match those of FUP and MUP KS officers was promised in June 2016 by Denis Zvizdić, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of BiH, as well as by Dragan Mektić, Minister of Security of BiH. From the announced commitment to increase the salaries of state-level police officers, only insufficient effort and disappointment among DKPT, SIPA, and GP members remained.

At that time, on August 18th, the Council of Ministers of BiH adopted decisions on the amount of the base for calculating salaries of employees in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina and on the amount of annual leave reimbursement in the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina for 2017.

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

This also applies to police officers, and as Patria learns, a salary increase for DKPT police officers did not occur at that time because one proposal also included a salary increase 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, received by police officers, to over 4,000 KM, received by the director and some inspectors. The difference in income also exists in cantons, where salaries range between 700 and 1,200 KM, while some commissioners, like the one in the Una-Sana Canton, receive up to 3,600 KM.