The Loris Police Department has lost nearly 25% of its officers in the last month to higher paying police departments, Police Chief Gary Buley said.
It’s not the only department struggling to offer competitive salaries and keep their departments staffed.
Smaller police departments in the Myrtle Beach area have been forced to increase pay in order to compete with larger forces, like Horry County Police.
Loris is one of those departments, as well as Conway, which raised its starting salary by over $17,000 this year, said city spokesperson June Wood.
It also comes at a time when crime has increased in Horry County , including gang violence. The Loris and Longs area has seen several cases of shootings that have resulted in deaths this year.
Loris also had a shooting death last month in which at least five people were charged in the case.
In the past couple years, police departments across the country have been struggling to staff their departments . There’s been an increase of officers retiring or leaving the force and fewer people applying for jobs, according to the Police Executive Research Forum. Experts point to criticism police received after George Floyd’s murder and the COVID-19 pandemic as reasons police forces have diminished.
Smaller police departments often can’t contend with larger municipalities’ salaries, making it tougher to hire and retain staff.
“Competing with bigger agencies who have the resources, and being able to recruit officers is difficult,” Buley said. “It’s difficult when we have a smaller tax base and lower salaries.”
How have police salaries changed?
Conway, Surfside Beach and Loris have all been trying to increase their salaries with varying success.
Surfside Beach, which has the capacity for 18 officers, has gotten creative to up its pay, said Police Chief Ken Davis. This year the department eliminated two positions and is using the money to expand salaries.
This has allowed the starting salary for officers to be raised from around $43,000 to $57,000. That’s a 30% raise when typical raises are 3% , according to Indeed.
“A smaller police department, of course, usually will pay less, but I think we’ve addressed quite a bit of that,” Davis said.
Surfside Beach was facing a nearly $2 million budget deficit this past spring, The Sun News reported. Surfside Beach raised taxes this past year to help pay for a salary increase for officers and fund other city operations.
Loris has raised the salary for their officers several times in the past year, resulting in a starting salary of about $39,000. However, it’s still about $20,000 below other departments like Myrtle Beach, whose recruits start at $59,000 a year, according to the department’s Facebook
“The last few years we were fortunate enough to up our salaries where we were at, although we’re still playing catch up with all the other agencies,” Buley said.
Raising wages isn’t an immediate fix
Buley said he’s already hired replacements for the four empty positions, but it will take six to eight months for the officers to finish training and work independently. This means the rest of the team is stepping up to cover the losses.
“On paper, we’re fully staffed,” Buley said. “But those four officers need to go through the training ... so we are down four officers.”
Loris is the smallest police department in the Myrtle Beach area with 13 full-time officers. In comparison, Horry County employs over 400 officers and Myrtle Beach has over 300 according to spokespeople Mikayla Moskov and Randolph Angotti, respectively.
In October 2023, Myrtle Beach Police told The Sun News they were down 57 officers. Since then, the department has posted numerous times on social media about new officers being sworn into the force, although they are still hiring.
In Surfside Beach, Davis is hopeful the police department will be in better shape in a few months. There are 11 people working, although there are spots for 18. Davis said he is in the process of hiring four new officers.
Last year, Wood said the police department was understaffed, but several months after raising salaries, Conway has filled all 38 class one officer positions within the city. Conway used money from its general fund budget to increase police salaries.
Hiring isn’t free
While hiring is needed, it’s not always a cheap option. When hiring police recruits, the hiring department will pay for them to become certified police officers. This includes paying for the schooling and paying the future officer while in school.
Davis said the police academy amount is relatively inexpensive but didn’t give an amount. The real costs come from buying training uniforms, which are different than officer uniforms, and paying recruits’ salaries before they enter the field, he said.
Wood said increasing salaries has attracted more qualified candidates, which cuts down on training time. Hiring certified officers requires only a few weeks to learn the department’s regulations instead of months spent in a police academy.
There’s also the background checks and other aspects of the hiring process that the departments have to spend money on.
As for the larger departments in the area, they seem to be functioning fine.
Horry County and North Myrtle Beach are 90% staffed. The North Myrtle Beach Police Department is more focused on hiring specialty officers, such as marine and public relations, rather than patrol, said North Myrtle Beach Officer Pat Wilkinson in an email to The Sun News.
“The work still has to be accomplished regardless of the amount or size of our police force,” Wood said. “You’re talking about officers having to do longer hours. Their caseloads are much larger than what they would be when we’re fully staffed.”
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