Chief's Chat #21: The Dispatch Pay Raise & Department Promotions

When it comes to building and maintaining an exceptional police force, the details matter. Cape Coral Police Department has just scored a major victory for its Telecommunications team by securing competitive pay for dispatchers - the culmination of a years-long effort to properly value these essential first responders.

In this episode of the Cape CopCast 'Chief's Chat,' Chief Sizemore breaks down how dispatcher compensation had previously been hampered by broad city-wide comparisons to similar-sized municipalities rather than the actual local competition for talent. "All recruiting and retention is local," he explains, noting that staff were leaving for nearby agencies offering better pay without requiring changes to their childcare arrangements, schools, or living situations. Through persistent advocacy, the department successfully carved out dispatchers from the larger collective bargaining unit, allowing for more accurate local compensation comparisons and creating both financial recognition and professional dignity for these critical team members.

The episode also spotlights department growth with exciting leadership announcements, including Deputy Chief Matt Campion and three new captains: William Rosario (Investigations), Julie Green (Professional Standards), and Brian Kearney (Patrol). Each promotion creates ripple effects of opportunity throughout the organization, with more advancement prospects coming in August's promotional process. As Chief Sizemore notes, what once yielded just one or two promotions now regularly produces "double digits on every list," reflecting the department's healthy expansion to nearly 500 total personnel.

Whether you're considering a career in law enforcement, interested in the dispatcher pipeline that can lead to officer positions, or simply curious about police department operations, this insider look at CCPD's strategic growth demonstrates how thoughtful leadership builds stronger public safety systems. 

Ready to join a department on the rise? Visit CapeCops.com to explore opportunities with Cape Coral Police Department.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome back to another episode of the Cape
Copcast Chiefs Chat Edition.
I am here once again with ChiefSizemore to talk about a few
things that we've been seeingthis week.
But first, how are you doing?
I'm good.
How are you?
I'm good.
It's been a busy week for us,yep.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Ready for the weekend .

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Absolutely.
There are a few things I knowwe want to touch on today, and
first I want to talk about theanticipated pay raise for our
dispatchers, because wedefinitely need more dispatchers
.
This is something that we'vebeen talking about for a while
now, and now I think there's abit more incentive, so to speak.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
Absolutely.
This is something that's reallybeen about five or six years in
the making, without getting tootechnical.
We have labor contracts right.
So our dispatchers belong to anacronym called IUPAT.
It's a labor union called theInternational Union of Painters
and Allied Traits.
It's a white collar union, aneasy way to say it.

(00:59):
And when we do labor agreementsthere's a lot of members in
that labor union throughout thecity, not just the police
department.
So there are city employees onthe macro level and they bargain
for contracts.
And our dispatchers, just likeother parts of the city, are
very, very nuanced, very unique,unlike any other white-collar

(01:23):
job.
So when they do comparisons toset pay structure, they do
comparable cities.
So they may, for instance, usePort St Lucy, coral Springs, st
Petersburg there could be manydifferent cities and they do
comparisons to them, which isgood.
There's a whole science behindthat.
But with a very unique job likecommunications, we like to, and

(01:48):
we have been trying for a longtime to use local comparables.
Even though the Lee CountySheriff's Office or Lee Control
for EMS, or City of Fort Myersor Naples, their cities are not
as large as ours, so they're nota comp on a big 2,000 employee

(02:09):
pay scale for the city.
They are very comparable for asmall group like Dispatch, but
it doesn't work when you'redoing collective bargaining, so
what we're able to do is getthem carved out.
They're still in that laborgroup but we were able to get
them their own separate littleunit if you would and be able to
have the freedom and be nimble,to do comparisons not just to

(02:32):
these other comparable largecities and get pay where we may
be competitive with St Lucie orwe may be competitive with Coral
Springs, but we are severelybehind the market locally.
We may be competitive withCoral Springs, but we are
severely behind the marketlocally.
Right, and when you talk aboutall politics is local, all
recruiting and retention islocal.
So what was happening is we hadprofessional people that would

(02:54):
come to work here and theydidn't have to take their kids
out of school, they didn't haveto leave their home, they didn't
have to abandon help with childcare to go across the bridge
and get the same type of job formore money.
And that became a real problem.
And when we would go forcontracts we weren't comparing

(03:14):
against those true competitorsfor that job.
So a lot of work went into it.
It's not an easy lift whenyou're doing stuff with
collective bargaining.
But we were able tosuccessfully do that on
Wednesday night.
The city council approved thatmove and then we were able to
then take that small group, do atrue comparison to our local
comps and get them to a verycompetitive salary.

(03:38):
So it's great for the peoplethat work here now because
there's no incentive or lessincentive to say, well, I'm just
going to go five miles away andmake more money doing the same
job.
There's no inconvenience of,like I said, changing schools or
moving or abandoning help Ifyou have help if you're a single
parent.
you have help from your parentsor you could be a secondary

(03:58):
income in the home your spouseisn't able to, you know,
fulfilled.
So we're now competitive toretain the awesome talent that
we have and, equally asimportant, attract new talent.

(04:19):
Absolutely so you can be acareer dispatcher and make
career money, and it's also afantastic entry into the
pipeline if you eventually wantto be a police officer.
But let's say you're in that 18to 21 year age group where you
cannot be a police officer, butthat's where you want to be.
You can get in work with thecity, work in our culture, learn

(04:39):
the job and be compensatedcompetitively and then you may
decide that, no, this is thecareer I want.
That's now an option, and ifyou still want to fulfill your
goal and be a police officer,you're in the pipeline.
So it was just a tremendouseffort by a lot of people the
human resources department, thefinance department, our folks,

(05:01):
everybody coming together thathad their eye on the prize and
it's a pretty proud day.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
That's awesome and you know, we have had people who
have started in dispatch andthen moved into the police role
when they were able to whetherit was an age thing or whether
it was a you know, whatever thesituation was that they decided
to kind of change to the policepath.
So that is definitely possibleand this is such a big win
because you mentioned keepingour own talent.

(05:26):
I mean these people, the workthat they do is so unique
compared to the rest of theunion that they're involved with
.
And you think of even the callthis week where we had that car
that went into the pond of water.
There is a dispatcher who tookthat call, worked through, you
know, talking to the personwho's on scene, who's witnessing

(05:48):
all of this.
You know the coordination ofthe officers that respond and
having to deal with all that itweighs a lot on a person, and so
it's great to see that thecompensation is matching the
level of work that they put in.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
Right it's.
They are the first firstresponders and they they answer
the call.
They're hearing the gruesomedetails, they're working right
alongside the first responderson the scene and then when you
hear the end result, it's justas traumatic.
They're included in ourcritical stress debriefing
situations.
It's a real professional joband part of it's financial, but

(06:27):
a big part of it, I think, ifyou'll ask them, is dignity as
well.
For sure, Absolutely so.
It's a big win.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
It's great news and hopefully this will help, you
know, bring more people in whowant to take on that job.
It's a it's definitelyrewarding.
We just had telecommunicatorsweek not too long ago, so I was
down there kind of interviewingdifferent people and a lot of
them were saying you know thereason they continue to do it is

(06:55):
just how rewarding it is.
So you know, being able toserve the community in that way.
So for anyone who's interested,you can go to the Cape Cops
website, capecopscom, fill outan application.
We'd love to have youAbsolutely, and we've had a lot
of changes within our department.
You've been busy, you and thetwo deputy chiefs.
You guys have been busy.
A lot of our staff that'sinvolved in the succession
process as well.
There's been a series ofpromotions and more to come.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
More to come.
In a growing organization we'reapproaching 500 people.
When you talk sworn officersand professional staff, that's a
big group and a lot of peoplewith a lot of people, you have a
lot of timelines.
So there's retirements thathappen, there's growth that
happens and when those twothings come together it creates
a lot of opportunity.

(07:35):
And we recently had a promotionprocess, or a testing process,
evaluation process if you will,for some executive staff
positions.
Phil Van Lanshoot retiringrecently.
We were able to find hisreplacement, I'm proud to

(07:56):
announce Deputy Chief MattCampion.
Over 20 years on the department, multiple assignments, a recent
grad of the FBI NationalAcademy, the preeminent
preparatory school foradvancement in executive
leadership.
So he's joined as a deputychief and his promotion because

(08:17):
he elevated from captain createda void.
We needed a captain and we hadtwo retirements that happened
several months ago.
So we wanted to combine themand do one process to get three
Okay and we put really talentedpeople through a rigorous
process and three people haveemerged.
We have Captain William.

(08:37):
Rosario is going to be takingover our Investigative Services
Bureau, our detective division,if you will.
Captain Julie Green came frompatrol and excelled in the
process and now she's going tobe taking over our professional
standards, excelled in theprocess and now she's going to
be taking over a professionalstandards which is recruiting,
hiring, training, internalaffairs, accreditation and

(08:59):
policy.
It's just the HR function ofour department and it's really
exciting for her because we arein that pedal to the metal
growth phase where we've we'reonboarding more than we ever
have.
So the recruiting is so pivotaland I can't think of a better
person to lead that area.
And if you meet her and sit downwith her, you're going to go to
capecopscom and join.

(09:20):
Oh yeah, and Captain BrianKearney, who is going to be
leading our patrol bureau, whichis our biggest bureau when you
think of the police, you thinkof that bureau and just dynamite
.
He's got a fantastic resume.
A big trainer on our departmentworked in our community
services bureau for schoolresource when we launched that

(09:40):
program, so he was pivotal indeveloping what it is today, the
success that we have today andthe training, the very nuanced
training for that type of a role, Just great leadership ability,
great followership and I'mexcited for what's going to
happen down in patrol and thenby all of them elevating.
There are voids where they were.

(10:01):
So we have some people inacting roles until we do a large
promotional process in August.
So that's coming really quick.
So that will be lieutenants forbackfill.
We have new lieutenants in thebudget because we are growing
kind of wider, so there's moreunits, that span of control, so

(10:21):
there's opportunities for that.
And when those lieutenants getpromoted they come from the
sergeant ranks.
So there'll be voids in thesergeant ranks and we have the
backfill there and then newpositions for sergeant.
So there's a lot of movementfor that.
And then where those sergeantscome from.
A lot of them come fromspecialized assignments, so
people in patrol or in otherparts of the building have the

(10:43):
opportunity to move into newroles.
So it's very exciting.
Even if you're not the onewho's getting promoted or on the
eligibility list to be promoted, there's opportunity for you
and there's excitement and abuzz and it's almost like a
holiday season around here whenwe do promotions, and years ago
when I started, there would be apromotional process and you
might get one or two, and nowwe're double digits on every

(11:07):
list.
So it's really exciting and Ican't wait for it.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Yeah, it's really awesome.
It's interesting too, causewhen I started, at the end of
2023, you guys had just gonethrough a big year of promotions
, then 2024, it was kind ofquiet.
We had, you know, maybe ahandful, and then this year,
2025, we're back out swinging.
So it seems like almost like anevery other year kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
It is.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Yeah, it's busy, well , awesome.
Anything else you want to covertoday?

Speaker 1 (11:33):
No, maybe we'll dry out a little bit.
We needed the rain.
I'm glad we got it, but it'd benice to have a sunny weekend.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
I would love that Absolutely.
Well, thank you so much foranother wonderful podcast and
thank you all for joining us.
We will catch you next time.
Have a good one.