According to Crossville City Manager Greg Wood, Crossville Police Chief David Beaty is under employment probation following his recent annual employment review over the high numbers of officers who have turned over in the Crossville Police Department. Wood described the turnover rate as “30 percent.”
At the end of the 90-day probationary period, Wood explained that he would hold another evaluation and at that time he would determine whether Beaty had improved or if he needed to seek other employment.
Crossville Police Chief
David Beaty
Currently, Beaty is also campaigning for the office of Fentress County Sheriff on the August 2 election.
During the budget discussions earlier this year the high level of turnover in the department came up during a May 2018 work session. The discussion included that the city police department has had a large amount of turnover in the last 12 months and is also having difficulty in recruiting new officers for the force.
Council discussed whether the problem was related to salary, benefits or something else. Chief David Beaty told the council then that they had lost officers to other departments including Cookeville. He said even if the pay was raised Crossville could still not compete with Cookeville due to the retirement benefits and a bridge program.
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Human Resources director Leah Crockett had researched through MTAS similar sized cities and what their department paid and she told the council in May that the city of Crossville's pay rate was behind those departments. At the May work session Manager Wood pointed out that even though the sheriff's office and some other area department's pay less than what Crossville pays its officers they do not have the same problem retaining officers that Crossville does.
The police department is the largest single department budget at $4.1 million and represents 20 percent of the entire city general fund budget.
In the first three months of 2018 three police officers left the department and the exit interviews from their personnel files give some indication of the issues. One of the three officers, Danny Harris, asked not to complete an exit interview.
Officer Elliot Baz indicated in his interview that he was leaving for higher pay, better benefits and better career opportunity. One remark on Baz's report indicated there were not sufficient opportunities for advancement.
The exit interview by Officer Camden Davis was the most unhappy with the department. Some of the reasons for Davis to leave included conflict with manager and company instability. In one area of comments, Davis said the police department needed to be restructured from the top down. He indicated he would not recommend the city as a place to work because there were too many options with better pay and less problems. Davis also commented that the Sargents were fabulous and not included in his complaint.
In March 2018, a 4-page anonymous letter addressed to City Manager Wood was received complaining about the high level of officer turnover. “How can a police department serve or protect the community if the cannot keep their officers?” the letter asked. The letter writer said they had attended the citizen's police academy under the previous police chief said they had noticed that the demeanor of the city officers had changed from smiling faces to sullen.
The letter concludes by saying that the writer fears “that the results of this will be felt for many years.”
David Beaty served as Police Chief until his choice to take early retirement offered by the city in January 2015 and then returned to the position of chief two years later in January of 2017. Prior to Beaty being rehired as chief, there was much discussion by the council and the public concerning the controversy of rehiring previous retirees who received early retirement buyouts.
Following Beaty's early retirement in 2015, Rod Shoap was hired as interim chief and after 18 months then city manager David Rutherford was prepared to hire Shoap as full police chief but Rutherford was then fired by city council leading interim manager Steve Hill to delay hiring Shoap. Shoap then resigned citing politics and Mark Rosser was hired as interim Chief. After 6 months Beaty was hired back and Rosser has since joined the Fairfield Glade Department as assistant chief.
This cities politicians act like a bunch of 2 year olds. Rod Shoap was a good chief of police but the good old boy politicians can't stop there petty differences. I am ashamed of this city.
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