’Disgraceful police salaries require immediate solution'

At present, starting police officers cannot hope to pass NIS 5,000 a month mark until he, she rises through five ranks.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Police car in Tel Aviv at night 311 (photo credit: Yoni Cohen)
Police car in Tel Aviv at night 311
(photo credit: Yoni Cohen)
The notoriously low pay offered to rank and file police officers should be increased immediately, the Knesset’s Internal Affairs and Environment Committee said on Monday.
At present, starting police officers cannot hope to pass the NIS 5,000 a month mark until he or she rises through five ranks, to become first-sergeant.
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Committee chairman MK Amnon Cohen (Shas) said the Finance Ministry within two weeks must increase the minimum police wage to NIS 7,000 a month.
“It is unfeasible for Israel’s police officers to receive a disgraceful salary. This harms the police’s ability to recruit new officers. A salary of NIS 5,000 for a position that has 47.5 [weekly] hours is a low salary by all accounts,” Cohen said.
Cohen said a bill proposal by the committee’s former chairman, MK David Azoulay (Shas), which called for an increase in salary, should be advanced to the stage of a draft bill if the government failed to address the issue.
He added that his committee would serve as “the worker’s committee of the police force to ensure a change in the conditions.”
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch addressed the committee, blasting the low police pay.
The minister said he had not yet succeeded in “bursting the Finance Ministry’s dam,” and criticized the government for failing to act.
Committee member MK Arieh Bibi (Kadima) added that a police officer’s spouse also had to be employed if “they had a chance to survive financially.”
MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) warned that an embittered police officer “won’t necessarily be good for members of the public.”