Morgantown City Manager Kim Haws confirmed Tuesday that PJ Scott, the city’s deputy police chief, has stepped down in order to return to his previous position within the MPD.
Haws said he was just informed of the decision on Tuesday. He said he did not know Scott’s rationale for the move but intended to find out.
The Dominion Post asked about the matter on July 18 after hearing of the move from multiple sources. The city said nothing had been confirmed at that point.
On July 21, the city shared a social media post recognizing Scott for his 22 years in law enforcement as well as his family’s legacy within the department. His father, Philip, served as chief throughout the 2000s.
The topic came up Tuesday during a conversation about recruitment and retention of city employees.
The city intends to use $571,000 of its $2,999,013 carryover to make two incentive payouts to full-time and part-time, benefit eligible employees. Those payments will be $1,000 or $500, respectively, and occur in September and May according to Finance Director Kevin Tennant.
Councilor Danielle Trumble floated the idea of making further incentive dollars available for civil service employees, noting the police department is currently about 20 officers short with another 10 expected to go in the coming months.
“His position was no longer beneficial enough to him to maintain that,” Trumble said of Scott. “We’re in a crisis with our civil service department … Every one of the city’s main functions is to provide public safety. When we’re struggling to do that, I think that we should be rewarding some of the employees who are willing to stick around and do it.”
Councilor Weezie Michael, who works with WVU Police, backed Trumble, citing higher pay and other incentives being offered by competing local departments as a potential reason for the city’s flagging recruitment numbers.
While the sentiment seemed unanimously supported, the mechanism of bonus incentives was not.
Councilor Brian Butcher said the Morgantown Police Department already boasts one of the largest budgets per capita of any city department in West Virginia.
“If I was to make any kind of plea, I guess it would be a reassessment of the police budget in general, and see what we can do within the budget that we already allocate because, again, it’s higher than most police budgets within the state – a good 10% higher,” Butcher said.
Councilor Bill Kawecki said the city can’t make the problem go away with bonus pay, adding, “And it’s not advantageous to portray it in that manner. It just makes people think as though we’re not really trying to do right by our employees, and we always have tried to do right by our employees.”
The topic of police staffing and retention dovetailed with the other main issue of the evening, downtown safety.
Council heard from a number of downtown business and property owners, like Patricia DiCenso, who said she and others are facing a “daily onslaught of criminal activity by the roving, lawless groups of drug addicts.”
DiCenso noted she’s resorted to posting photos of this behavior online, drawing support from some and scorn from others in the community.
“The truth must be told of what a failure and how devastating the previous council’s social policies are to the hardworking businesses in this community,” she said.
