Letter to the Editor
Shreveport Police Officers Association
by Michael E. Carter, Ph.D.
The lack of leadership at Shreveport City Hall has prevailed once again. Only a few weeks ago the City’s CAO, Tom Dark, confidently stated in the local media that there would be no employee pay raises in 2026.
SPOA took Mr. Dark at his word. He is the person that has repeatedly taken money from the Shreveport Police Departments budget. He managed to get away with three million dollars in the 2024 budget cycle. The Shreveport City Council required him to leave 1.5 of the original 4.5-million-dollar heist for overtime. Overtime that will never
end due to over 150 vacant positions within the police department.
Instead of looking for the many ways to provide a retention raise to address that crisis, the answer for Mr. Dark and his boss, Mayor Tom Arceneaux, was to defund the police department further. Yes, it is called defunding when you take money away from a budget. Reducing a budget sounds much more attractive I admit, just remember it was taken from payroll.
We simply asked for a retention raise during 2023 for the 2024 budget. We wanted to use the funded, unfilled position salaries to provide a pay raise with the hope that we could retain the remaining Officers. But the Shreveport City Council unanimously voted to let Mr. Dark take the money.
Recently, tax payers have funded emergency meetings, special meetings of the Shreveport City Council. Those meetings have specifically been about crime in the streets. There have been no emergency meetings about brown drinking water that flows from our taps. There have been no emergency meetings about raging fires or even the deplorable condition of city streets. The rage has always been, and always be, crime.
We are a union that is dedicated to the profession of law enforcement. We have existed since 1964. So many of the elected leaders use the issues surrounding our service and occupation as their ladder for political achievement. They use the issues, but forget the needs once elected.
On November 7, 2025, we submitted a 10% base pay raise proposal to all seven Council Members. I personally wrote their names on each packet, and affixed an SPOA logo. We then hand delivered the packets to the City Council office staff. The first and only pay proposal request of the 2026 city budget cycle for the police officers. We assumed that all other labor organizations would complete their obligatory duty for their members. As it turns out, submitting a pay proposal for the members that pay dues to SPOA is some how wrong in this council’s eyes.
This led to an extreme bias on behalf of five of the members that attended the November 21, 2025 meeting. Let there be no misunderstandings, this current council, minus one, has no shame for what they have allowed to happen over the course of their tenure. The Shreveport Police Department is drastically behind the regional average pay for law enforcement in this ICMA region. Many times, regional salary averages have been brought up only to be disregarded, delayed, and simply shouted down.
The crafty little quip of removing the resolution 147 by procedural dismissal, might have escaped public understanding if it had not been for Councilman Green. When the author, Council Brooks asked the council members why they did not just introduce the legislation and vote against it if they disagreed, Mr. Green confirmed; “that’s what we just did.”
In fact, that is exactly what five of the current city council members did. They refused to consider once again, that we are over 150 police officers short. They know, and have acknowledged publicly, that without incremental gains in police pay towards the regional average, we will never be staffed. Instead of looking at the proposal for its true intent, it was demonized by personal agendas attempting to play politics for those entering their election year cycle.
Perhaps Mr. Dark made the dire situation crystal clear when he stated; “they will never fill over 100 positions.” We agree with Mr. Green. You did vote down a 10% pay proposal request made by the Shreveport Police Officers Association. You and four of your colleagues, to include retired Police Sergeant, Councilman Jim Taliaferro. We also agree with Mr. Dark. With his budgeting strategies and obsessive control, which he calls “conservative approach,” the Shreveport Police Department will never be adequately staffed. Therefore, we will need change. We will need great change in the year of 2026.
It is time to acknowledge that we have the wrong people in key positions. Positions that the city of Shreveport so desperately needs to be competently staffed. When the Shreveport Police Officers Association conducts a pay comparison study, regional pay average study, and submits a pay proposal request, we have the intent to compete for qualified officers in our region. Our goal is to serve Shreveport in the profession of law enforcement. But current leaders do not take policing seriously.
Not 48-hours after a double homicide, Councilman Brooks was attacked for proposing our request in a resolution. But he was not the real target. We are. The hatred that spews is indignant. But we do appreciate the simplicity offered by Councilman Green, and Mr. Dark. The intent is deep-rooted. When we are accused of “leaving others out” of our pay plan, it projects the real feelings towards the police. You do not see this ill intent during campaign speeches and election cycles.
We work for SPOA members. We are compelled to represent our members. We do not conduct research, analyze pay charts, or seek regional pay comparisons for other city departments, and we never will. We also never miss the real reason the city council members rebuke the glaring need for competitive regional law enforcement salaries. Shreveport is in a crisis regarding police staffing and it blatantly appears that they intend to stay in that crisis.
Dr. Michael E. Carter is a 29-year veteran of the Shreveport Police Department and a 25-year elected SPOA President with a graduate education is in Organizational Psychology.
