Eleven Abbeville Police officers filed suit against the city last month, claiming their pay hasn't been calculated properly.
We reached out to the mayor, who said no comment could be made on pending litigation.
The lawsuit asks the court to enforce a state law that sets up the pay scale for the Abbeville Police Department; the officers say that the current pay scale that the city uses doesn't comply with that law.
The law, which was passed in the 1980s, sets a minimum monthly salary of $766.80 for police officers, and requires that a police officer first class get at least 15 percent more than what a police officer is paid; that a sergeant get at last 25 percent more than that, and that a lieutenant get at least 50 percent more.
The law also requires that all officers with at least three years of continuous service receive an annual increase of at least 2 percent.
The lawsuit states that Abbeville voters passed a tax in May 2019 that covers the raises. State records show that voters approved a half-cent sales tax proposition that month that was expected to raise $1.4 million annually to fund "sustainable" pay raises for all full-time employees of the city.
In 2022, the lawsuit alleges, the city changed its payscale to set a starting police officer salary at $40,000 annually. New officers started getting that salary in 2023, but the plaintiffs, who are all senior officers in the department, haven't seen the changes in their pay that they say they're entitled to. The city's own documents call for the pay scale that's outlined in the law, the officers' attorneys say, but the officers' paychecks do not reflect it.
The city also isn't calculating the 2 percent increase properly, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit says the officers sent a letter to the city, pointing out the discrepancies between their pay and the law and the city's pay scale, but the city council rejected their request for corrections.
The suit asks the court to find the city's actual pay schedule in violation of the law, to order the city to pay the officers what they are owed, as well as the pay they've missed out on since the new salaries took effect last year. They're also asking that the court order the city to pay their attorney fees.
Here's the lawsuit:
