CLPEX Chat Board

I would like to know how many agencies have pay parity for all criminalists/examiners/specialists/latent examiners. Is it comon practice to pay CLPE's lest then DNA or Chem analysts, with less or no admin leave time?

Did your agency make changes to correct these issues and if so how?

My agency is not interested in pay parity for LPE's "C" or not. We are near the bottom of a totem pole with the highest paid DNA/Chem Lab analysts not making anywhere near what the same positions do in other states/cities.

But our COPS sure do rake it in!

sorbitol:

I think you will find that about 80% do not receive pay parity. But what I am interested in is why that is or why do the readers think it is that way.

Why is the pay not equal??

I am sure there are a number of different reasons.

Mr. Parker:

I think the biggest reason for the pay difference is DNA. The technology is much newer and its the "wave of the future". More money is granted and spent in that area then in latents. How many times have you heard anyone can train in latents? So respect is another problem. FP examination has been around for quite a time longer then other disciplines and agencies and their brass take it for granted.

We as latent print examiners can throw all the stats out, number of cases , number of items per case, new comparison requests but the powers at be don’t listen. What can we do to get pay parity? Or even the same benefits such as administrative leave time?

My lab had a lot of problems when there were "pay ranges." In the first place, nobody ever topped out because there was no movement within the range. If you were hired straight out of college near the bottom of the range, you would get pay raises when the range itself was raised, but you wouldn't move up in the range. The department itself simply never funded pay raises except for moving the ranges up a little from time to time.

Realizing this problem, about ten years ago the lab made a major overhaul of the system within the laboratory. Now we have pay levels for each position, and each level has a specific salary. Every person at that level gets the same salary, regardless of the discipline in which they practice. A person without a degree might start as a "Laboratory Technician," the only non-degreed position except for the secretaries and administrative assistants. With a science degree, the entry level position is "Associate Criminalist." After a year there, upgrade to "Criminalist I" is automatic. Then, based only on time in grade, Criminalist II, Criminalist III, and Criminalist IV, which takes ten years. A Criminalist IV in fingerprints makes exactly the same as a Criminalist IV in DNA, which is more than a Highway Patrol Lieutenant makes.

Don't worry, Sorbitol, I voted early in the poll. In the minority, of course.

Ok Pat,

My question is how did you get it changed 10 years ago? "WE" currenty have litle or no support on getting things changed and there is NO WAY the agency will pay for a study.

And what gets me is the way the lab P & P manual has all the job discriptions the same with just LPE and criminalist switched.........

I think we're doomed...not to mention the Seminole County CLPE problems in the same state making us look bad while we're trying to show how techinical our job is.

The lab in Arizona DPS was created in 1975, I believe. The Tucson "satellite lab" was opened in 1978. Then the Flagstaff satellite lab was created. The system of hiring people into a pay range, never at the top, but never with raises, became terribly unfair to everybody in the lab. Likewise, while the top of the range was attractive, people several years into their careers could get better pay and a brighter future just about anywhere else, so turnover was becoming a problem. The laboratory did a major salary survey and found we were way behind market in the salaries we actually paid. The Department itself then allowed the laboratory to submit a completely overhauled pay plan.

I don't know how to tell anybody to go about overhauling their own pay system. We just got lucky.

sorbitol,

I can perhaps add a little historical context to Pat's Arizona state lab situation. The Latent Print Section was originally administratively separate from the Crime Lab, with separate MQ's, requiring IAI LPE Certification, but not necessarily a bachelor's degree in a natural science (as required for Crime Lab Criminalist positions). That changed in 1990, when the Latent Print Section was assimilated into the Crime Lab. My recollection is that the MQ's changed at that time to the Crime Lab's bachelor degree requirement, although LPE Certification after 3 years was retained as a requirement for continued employment in the position. Existing examiners were retained as LPEs, with new hires as Criminalists.

It is my understanding that after my retirement in 2004, the LPE Certification requirement was to be dropped. There remain two 'dinosaur' latent print examiners in the lab system, IAI Certified LPE's, who I believe continue to receive compensation on a different & lesser payscale than their Criminalist counterparts who they trained.

Pat W. would have been one of those 'dinosaurs' (he definately was on the short end of frozen compensation we all suffered through for a number of years), except that he took the initiative and possessed the qualifications to enable conversion to a Criminalist position.

All this perhaps strays from your point. I am not an attorney & make no representation as to providing legal advice. That being said, does your agency have a formal grievance procedure? If the problem is getting the issue to the head of the agency, this may be a route that enables it. Is there either a formal or informal employee group that might have access to management and be willing to provide representation (sometimes even legal assistance)? This could be worthwhile even if there is a membership fee or dues required.

If the problem lies outside of the immediate agency (either funding or administrative rules) it may be a more difficult road to travel, especially without management cooperation. Legislative statute or county/munincipal ordinance specifying requirements (including LPE certification), and compensation equality may be a route to pursue.

Regardless, you should do your homework & have documentation and evidence immediately available, including job descriptions, payscales, listing of current employees including experience and senority, copies of administrative rules, ordinances, statues that may apply, and copies of written documentation attempting to resolve the problem at your lowest supervisory and management level.

You can also do at least an informal survey youself of other agencies, both in your immediate area & on a broader scale. Be prepared to show that you have made an honest attempt to compare apples to apples.

I think that what has happened in this discipline with regards to pay can be traced back to the earlier days when agencies in need of fingerprint services (latent print and/or ten-print) turned to injured police officers, officers retired on active duty, or worse still, officers with disciplinary issues, to fill the void and perform these services. The officers were trained, often by lower payed civilians with fingerprint skills, and were usually made supervisors in the unit by virtue of their sworn status...even though the people they were supervising had the requisite skills that they were lacking.
This led to the mindset that anyone can be trained to do the job --- even the agency's difficult officers. That mindset has not been easy to shake, and in many ways haunts the pay scale for LPE's and 10 print specialists.
I've been in this field for over 30 years, and have experience as a Crime Scene Investigator and am a Certified LPE. However, I am presently an administrator as the Director of the Forensic Services at my agency. We have had success in adjusting the pay scale for many of our positions, including LPE and 10-prints. We have done this by articulating the demand versus the supply (there aren't that many people with skills in these areas looking for work), and by comparing our salaries to neighboring agencies, as well as other agencies of similar size and work demands. I believe this is an easier goal to reach (if your goal is to get your salaries increased) than to achieve parity with other lab disciplines.
Best of luck,
Royce

Royce, I really appreciate the input and Pat’s too. But here is the problem…….. Where I work its hard to compare our pay to other agencies? ( I know another kink in the problem I first posted) . My agency as a whole is rather large and surrounding agencies are rather small and rely on our services; to top that we are also ASCLAD. There are only so many labs that service so many other agencies, are ASCLAD, and in a high cost of living area. Our best comparison is the State Lab, who has pay parity. But another lab ? ok Arizona but they are not even close to south FLA either in distance or in cost of living. I don’t mean to complain but it is a little irksome to see people in the next office doing half the work you do making ( or potential ) 12K more with the same P&P outlines. From my understanding this has gone EEOC. Hopefully something will change. Or do you got room for more CLPE’s there? LOL…

sorbitol,

It think the best comparison would be labs that are the most similar to yours in duties, size, accreditation, etc... Even though they may be in areas with higher costs of living (or lower), that can all be accounted for by using a cost of living calculator. So, for example, in Tampa, FL a job that makes in the mid $50K's would be equal to a job in the Seattle, WA area in the mid $60K's using the calculator at Bankrate.com: http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

Bob Tavernaro reminded me that latent print examiner salary at my lab did not evolve quite as simply as I stated. When the Latent Print Unit went into the lab, the salaries remained the same -- much lower than the other "criminalists" in the lab. But the requirement for a "criminalist" was a bachelor's degree in chemistry or a minimum of 20 hours of chemistry with a "hard science" degree. However, there were very few people with chemistry degrees or background who were prepared to do DNA, so the lab changed the requirement to a "natural science" and allowed for equivalency to meet the chemistry requirement. They did this with only one thought in mind -- recruiting good people to do DNA. My degree in geosciences did not meet the chemistry requirement on its own, but combined with my time in the field, I met the equivalancy. When I filed the paperwork to reclassify as a criminalist, there was great howling and gnashing of teeth in the Lab Director's office, but the Legal Division held that since I met the new definitions, they could not refuse my reclassification as criminalist. Following that, the Lab management decided they would retire the "Latent Print Examiner" job title as the old timers left. Only those who meet the requirements for criminalist get hired for latent prints now, but we are at complete parity with other disciplines. Oddly, the old latent print examiners had the option of going back to college on the agency's tuition reimbursement plan (and flexible scheduling) and reclassifying as criminalists, which would have brought a $1,000 a month pay raise, not to mention the increased pension on retirement, but not one single latent print examiner took advantage of that opportunity. You can argue what "should" have been done, but at the end of the day, it comes down to what the rules are.

At any rate, I guess it was more a lucky break that we get pay parity now. But one thing I disagree with on the topic of salary surveys is this: We live in a very mobile society. You cannot just compare the salary at your agency with those of neighboring agencies. A whole lot of latent print examiners move to a neighboring state or even across the country for a higher salary. In this transient environment, an agency needs to be in a fairly equitable relationship with other agencies, salary wise, on a national basis. Otherwise, you'll lose good folks.

This is becoming an interesting discussion....Pat has made some very cogent points regarding the willingness (and often the desire) of many LPEs to move across the state, across the country, and sometimes, from one country to another.
In my opinion, you will have the greatest success if your agency can be made to understand these 7 things:
1. The critical role that a LPE plays in the investigation of the most serious crimes your agency will ever deal with (as do the DNA analysts).
2. The dearth that exists in the fingerprint field --- latents and 10 prints. Remember, years ago the FBI was spitting out fingerprint examiners like watermelon seeds. They recruited people right out of high school, trained them, and after a year or two, they could go virtually anywhere in the country and get a job. We had a seemingly endless pool of people to choose from. However, when AFIS (back then it was called AIDS ---Automated ID System) came into the picture, that pool dried up as there was less and less of a need for human FP examiners at the FBI. Ergo, the demand now far exceeds the supply. Your agency, like all the others, must do what is necessary to retain examiners they have, and to compete with other agencies looking for good candidates.
3. The fact that LPEs are transient/mobile people. Your agency is not just competing with those next to them, or with us in Tampa. They're competing with agencies in London, New Hampshire, California, etc.
4. What other examiners make throughout the discipline, not just throughout the state.
5. The fact that you are involved in a science.
6. The education, experience, continued training, and skills you must possess to do this job.
7. The accountability you function under...it's tremendous.

I am not convinced that parity must exist between a DNA analyst, and a LPE. I'm not certain of the exact pay for DNA analysts (we still use outside DNA labs), but I believe that our LPEs make more than the DNA analysts in the public sector in this area...and I think that's justified. It's 2 different jobs, 2 different skill sets, 2 different educational requirements. I am aware, however, of many state labs where an analyst is an analyst, whether you are talking DNA, latents, firearms, etc, and they have pay parity and things work fine in those settings.
Whatever course you take, you will have to win them over with facts. Do your homework and articulate a sound position.
Good luck,
Royce