The East Baton Rouge Metro Council has approved the for Baton Rouge police in the department’s history.
At a council meeting Wednesday night, Mayor-President Sid Edwards’ proposal — which institutes a minimum 15% salary increase for sworn Baton Rouge police officers — passed with nine council members voting yes and council members Cleve Dunn Jr., Darryl Hurst and Anthony Kenney abstaining.
After the vote, Police Chief TJ Morse said he was proud of his department and excited about the impact the raises will have.
“I've always said from the beginning that Baton Rouge Police Department is a premier law enforcement agency,” Morse said. “What was holding us back was pay.”
The approval comes after some and some Democratic council members who said the Constable’s Office and other city-parish departments should be getting a raise at the same time.
The Mayor’s Office on Wednesday introduced an agenda item to institute a raise for some that would include the Constable’s Office. A vote on the item is set for May 13, but the amounts of that raise have not yet been announced.
Mayor-President Sid Edwards speaks during a press conference announcing the arrest of two suspects in the 2022 fatal shooting of three-year-old Devin Page Jr. at the Howell Community Park Inspiration Center on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. Staff photo by Javier Gallegos
Javier Gallegos
Edwards thanked the council in a statement Wednesday and echoed the police chief’s thoughts on what it will mean for public safety in Baton Rouge
“Tonight’s decision is not only important to recruit and retain high-quality police officers, but it helps Baton Rouge avoid millions of dollars in penalties if BRPD staffing decreased more,” he said.
With the council’s approval, the starting pay for Baton Rouge police will jump from roughly $41,000 to $58,000. Maximum pay for Baton Rouge police sergeants will increase from $69,000 to $98,000, lieutenants will go from $75,000 to over $108,000 and captains will increase from $81,000 to $121,000.
With the raises, Morse said he expects an influx of new recruits will soon apply, and the department plans to hire 30 to 40 additional officers before the end of the year.
The raise is largely funded by savings realized through the switch of city-parish employees’ retirement benefits, which Metro Council members proposed last year.
Fight over other raises
Prior to the meeting’s start, council administration had received 803 emailed comments from the public in support of the raise and two against it.
Before the police pay vote, Constable Terrica Williams urged the public to think of the Constable’s Office as law enforcement and said it should be compensated as such.
“I've said this from the beginning, and I will continue to say they do deserve a pay increase,” Williams said. “Constables do deserve that increase as well.”
Her comments followed the police chief’s address to the council, which included a statement that when someone in the parish calls 911. only EMS, the Sheriff’s Office or his department answers the call.
“That is it,” Morse said.
More than a dozen members of the public spoke in favor of the pay increases, and many of them also asked the council to support raises for the Constable’s Office next month too. A few people spoke against the pay increase.
All five council Democrats — Dunn, Hurst, Kenney, Carolyn Coleman and Twahna Harris — noted the importance that the May 13 measure for additional city-parish raises passes too.
“Safety isn’t just about sirens and badges,” Coleman said.
Carolyn Coleman, Council Member, District 10, speaks during the metro city council meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, October 22, 2025.
Javier Gallegos
She said the four other council Democrats joined her in a meeting with the mayor last week, demanding raises for everyone in city-parish government.
Feeling like she had the promise from the mayor, whose office introduced the May 13 item, Coleman motioned to approve the police raises herself.
In a contentious moment, Hurst told his colleagues he would vote in favor of the police pay raises only if six of his council colleagues would raise their hands and promise to vote in favor of the other raises next month.
When he didn’t receive that support, he motioned to defer the police raise. But he did not have the votes to make that happen.
Dunn also wanted it to be deferred and said he would support a raise for police only if it came at the same time as the 3% raise for everyone else.
Several Republican members replied sharply to Hurst’s attempt for a premature vote, including an animated Rowdy Gaudet, who pointed out that the council had not yet seen information about the other raises or how they would be funded.
“I have had no discernment time on that particular item,” Gaudet said. “So I reject the notion to be asked to show a hand of what's to come in three weeks when not a member of the public has had an opportunity to review that item.”