Fulmer credits Mayor Eddie Reed as being an instrumental part of why the ordinance was passed this month.

“This has been a work in progress since right after Mayor Reed took office in 2004,” Fulmer said. “We have looked at this for a while and here we are finally at the point of getting it passed.”

According to the ordinance, for a police officer to receive a 3-percent increase in pay upon completion of a pay grade step, the 3-percent increase will not be attached to the salary until the following January of each calendar year.

The first step in the pay grade scale for a new hire will start at the first pay grade scale for the class of position hired, which is a base salary.

Fulmer said he organized the pay grades to increase from the first pay grade scale 3 percent for each grade an officer completes.

Fulmer included 15 pay grades in the scale including a pay grade for a captain of the police department.

“I went ahead and included pay grades for about 30 years,” Fulmer said. “I was looking at the next 20-30 years and for promotion purposes and wanted to create a standard and guidelines to make things easier.”

Fulmer said more cities including those in Chilton County have adopted a pay grade scale including Clanton Police Department and Thorsby Police Department.

“Each city has a different way of doing it and after looking at several different models I thought this would be the best model for the city of Jemison,” Fulmer said. “This allows everything to have a set of guidelines that makes it easy to follow. This way we don’t have to sit down and try to figure out what a certain person should be paid. You now have all of the ranks listed out and can follow them easily.”

The ordinance will also not allow more than two officers to be specialized in a certain area of training at one time and Fulmer must approve the certification, along with the city of Jemison, mayor and council.

“This prevents the department from having everyone become a firearm instructor,” Fulmer said. “The biggest thing is retaining quality employees. We have a good group of guys and they do a great job. This ordinance will allow everyone to benefit from the pay scale.”