Temple boosts police salaries by double digit percentages in new contract, will increase number of patrol officers
The new contract is designed to help the university attract more officers and respond to concerns raised in a staffing study last year.
Temple University will significantly raise the salaries of its police force under a new five-year contract aimed at addressing its longstanding problem of attracting and retaining enough officers.
The new contract — which comes a year before the previous contract was set to expire — was initiated by university president John Fry after a staffing study released in December found the school needed to increase its number of police officers.
The new pay scale more closely aligns with that of the Philadelphia Police Department, the university said, and is expected to help the school reach its goal of increasing its number of patrol officers by 29, or 58%, over five years. It now has 79 police officers on staff — about 50 of them patrol officers — with three more poised to start Sept. 8. Five more are ready to graduate from Temple’s police academy in October, with more lined up to start there, the university said.
“We understand, like in our bones, how vital this work is not only to the safety of our students and our employees but to our neighbors, which we prioritize as well,” Fry said in an interview Thursday. “If we’re going to make North Philadelphia in particular an investable area, it all starts with public environment and public safety. No one’s going to contemplate making major research or commercial or residential or retail investments in an area that they don’t have confidence in.”
» READ MORE: Temple pledges to boost police patrol officers by 58% over five years following staffing study
Under the new pact — which was ratified in June and runs through June 30, 2031 — an officer with at least three years of experience will start at a salary of $92,000, up $8,572, or 10.25%, from the previous salary of $83,428.
Those with at least five years of experience will start at $100,000, up $12,878, or 14.75%, from $87,122.
And officers will get raises ranging from 3% to 6.5% at anniversary milestones or across-the-board increases of 3% — whichever is greater. The agreement was announced Thursday.
“From a competitive standpoint, this new contract will make a huge difference,” Andrew Lanetti, president of the Temple University Police Association, the union, said in a statement. “It is going to entice young officers at the beginning of their career to join Temple, and it will also entice officers from other agencies to join our department.”
And it is helping to keep officers, too, he said in an interview.
“Many people who were thinking about moving on to other departments have now changed their minds,” he said.
Officers will see significant salary bumps, ranging from $5,000 to $17,000, as they reach each level, he said.
The contract, said Denise Wilhelm, interim vice president of public safety, also has made officers feel more valued.
“This is a true partnership, and it shows,” Wilhelm said.
Temple enrolled 29,503 students last year excluding its campuses in Rome, Tokyo, and Kyoto, Japan. Its police officers patrol on and around the school’s main campus and health sciences campus in North Philadelphia and on its Ambler campus.
The university had faced criticism from the Temple police union in the past for not doing enough to recruit and retain officers. In a social media post in December 2024, the union said the department had lost more than 50 officers since 2022.
The new pact also includes paid parental leave, an additional week of vacation for a total of five after 15.5 years, field training officer pay, and hazard pay for working during declared states of emergency, the university said.
The staffing study released in December showed that Temple was below the middle tier of a framework that rates law enforcement agencies. The university at that time had 77 sworn officers — 50 of them patrol officers — and Fry pledged to add 29 patrol officers, one detective, six sergeants, and one lieutenant over the next five years. That would increase the overall number of sworn officers to 114.
“We must, and we will, deploy ever more compelling and creative incentives to make Temple’s Department of Public Safety a destination employer for law enforcement in our region,” Fry, who named public safety a top priority when he started as Temple’s president in November 2024, said at that time.
Retaining and hiring police officers have remained challenging, as has been true for police departments nationally. The university in the past had increased salaries and benefits, added signing and retention bonuses and higher contributions to retirement accounts, and hired an associate director to focus solely on hiring, recruitment, retention, and training.
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But the overall number of officers had declined over the last few years anyway. Temple ended the last academic year with 76 officers, down one from December.
Fry said he is confident this time will be different because the strategy is long-term and intentional, with the university prepared to make the budgetary investment, even though it means sacrifices will have to be made elsewhere.
“We’re certainly going to do better than we have been doing,” he said.
The university is preparing to bring in new leadership for public safety. Jennifer Griffin, Temple’s former vice president of public safety, resigned in June after nearly four challenging years on the job. The university is conducting a national search for her replacement.
Griffin had started in August 2022 as the university continued to cope with the aftermath of the shooting death of student Samuel Collington outside his off-campus apartment in November 2021.
She led the department when Temple Officer Christopher Fitzgerald was shot and killed in 2023 while on duty and through other challenges facing the campus.
During her tenure, the university implemented or began implementation of all 68 recommendations from a safety audit by former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey’s firm.
