Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Pay increases for police officers are budgeted in the Department of Public Safety’s financial plan for fiscal year 2021 “and we request [for it] to remain as is,” declared Police Commissioner, Le’i Sonny Thompson in a public plea — which appears to be directed to the Fono, but didn’t mention the Legislature by name.

Le’i made the plea at last Friday’s cabinet meeting at Gov. H. Rex Auditorium saying that he was instructed to provide a briefing on those hired due to the COVID-19 emergency declaration. While a written report was distributed to cabinet members, he gave a verbal summary saying that 120 officers were hired; pay was $8 per hour, with a base salary of $16,640. With fringe benefits added on, the total salary package per person was $18,000-plus with an overall total of $2.17 million.

He also told the meeting that four years ago, there were only 97 police officers and DPS carried out police academies to recruit more officers, as the local population increases. He said DPS thoroughly reviewed its situation and came up with a proposed FY 2021 budget — submitted via the governor, but it’s now been cut.

Le’i didn’t mention the Fono by name as the one which made the cuts in his plea to leave the DPS budget alone. Instead he addressed it to the cabinet and those watching on government owned KVZK-TV — which aired the cabinet meeting Friday night — with private news outlets reporting on the meeting later.

As previously reported by Samoa News, DPS is one of the many executive branch departments and offices whose budgets received drastic cuts by the Fono, when it gave final approval to the FY 2021 budget. Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga has since rejected the move by the Fono and called the Legislature back for a 15-day special session to reconsider the FY 2021 financial plan for ASG.

Prior to Le’i’s presentation the governor spoke at the start of the cabinet meeting explaining the reasons behind the decision not to sign the FY 2021 budget approved by the Fono.

According to the governor, the Administration’s budget plan includes — among others — a new $16,000 salary threshold for new police officers, from their previous pay of $10,000-$11,000 annually.

Le’i said the previous starting pay for police officers is very low and the territory needs more police officers, as they “truly work 24-hours a day in-spite of all the negative and so on and so forth.”

“You need cops” to protect the community, the public’s safety, and if it’s not done, “the federal government is going to intervene. There’s no way they can just let it go,” he said and again requested to keep the DPS budget as submitted “as it is”, and noting that it should not be reduced or cut.

With the current COVID-19 emergency declaration, more police officers are needed, as they have been tasked with enforcement of COVID-19 restrictions, according to the Police Commissioner, who thanked the governor for approving the DPS request to hire more officers for enforcement, resulting in the new 120 officers.

However, Le’i said DPS needs more officers to carry out enforcement, and cited news reporters of fishermen who were quarantine on their vessels — but left the boat and went elsewhere.

He said police is the agency that the public calls on when they need any type of enforcement, as the territory does not have a national guard or any other enforcement agency.

“We believe in law and order,” he said and called for the community’s support in “community policing” saying that police can’t do it alone without cooperation from the public.