Meridian PD pays top dollar. Why is it losing police officers to Boise?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Meridian PD officers earn more on average, but Boise offers stronger benefits.
- Shift pay, health care and overtime drive officer migration from Meridian to Boise.
- Meridian proposes levy to boost wages, retain staff and fund local prosecutions.
Over two dozen officers have left the Meridian Police Department in the past two years.
Some moved away, some changed career paths and some retired. But three of those officers are waking up each morning and going to work in law enforcement — a few miles down the road in Boise.
Why? Employees in the Meridian Police Department, including officers and staff, have higher salaries than almost any other law enforcement agency in the Treasure Valley, earning, on average, over $97,000 a year, according to an analysis of agencies’ salaries by the Idaho Statesman. That’s roughly $8,000 more than the average in Boise.
Still, Meridian officials are firm: The department is slowly but surely bleeding officers to Boise. It’s become such a problem for the growing city that the city seeks to ask taxpayers to foot a $5-million-a-year bill that would help the department “recruit and retain” the best and the brightest.
Despite its competitive wages, Meridian Police Chief Tracy Basterrechea told the Statesman, the department’s overall compensation — which includes benefits, health care and overtime — pales in comparison with Boise’s. And prospective officers are starting to take note, he said.
“Honestly, back when I started out, no one really cared what you were getting paid,” Basterrechea said in an in-person interview at Meridian City Hall. “You just wanted to be a cop. That’s what you wanted to do, and you’d do it for free.”
To match Boise’s comprehensive benefits package, Meridian would have to improve some benefits, like health care, throughout city government, Mayor Robert Simison told the Statesman. Given that Meridian has roughly 670 employees, 151 of whom are sworn personnel, that would have “big financial impacts citywide,” Simison said. So he’s focusing on police wages instead.
In June, Simison announced his intention to place a $5 million levy on the November ballot that would raise police wages 9% — bringing average pay into six figures — at the cost of $2.1 million. The other $2.7 million would primarily be used to fund 13 firefighters now funded by an expiring grant, and also establish an in-house prosecutor’s office to handle misdemeanor cases and infractions.
The ballot measure, which would cost taxpayers $20.11 per $100,000 of assessed property value annually, still needs City Council approval before it would reach voters. The council is expected to vote on it during a special meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, July 29, at Meridian City Hall.
Better benefits ‘right across Eagle Road,’ chief says
Despite entry-level Meridian officers making about $66,000 a year, compared with Boise’s $63,000, Basterrechea said Boise’s other benefits increase officers’ overall compensation significantly.
“They’re probably making around 12% more right across Eagle Road — doing the same exact job,” he said.
Some of the incentives are easier to compete with. Boise officers who work odd hours, like a swing or overnight shift, receive a shift differential. Officers who start work anytime between noon and 5:59 p.m. get a 3% increase to their base pay, and if they start at 6 p.m. or later, they get a 5% increase.
So Meridian Police began paying the same rate for their officers who work swing or overnight shifts. But other benefits, like health care and overtime, aren’t as easy to match.
Boise fully covers the cost of health care for its employees and their dependents, while Meridian covers 100% of the employees’ costs but only 80% of their dependents’ costs. Boise also offers health care plans for officers and firefighters after they retire. Meridian doesn’t.
One Meridian officer recently left because his family was having health issues, and the benefits at Boise were too good to pass up, Basterrechea said. “That’s hard for me to argue with that person and try to convince them to stay, when they’re right,” he added.
Overtime is another factor. In 2024, employees within the Meridian Police Department logged 23,000 hours of overtime, or almost 980 days, according to salary data obtained through a public-records request. That worked out to over $1.6 million in overtime pay.
One employee, Isaac Biebuyck, worked over 950 hours of overtime, the data showed. He was hired in 2023 and makes roughly $35 an hour as a police officer, which averages out to nearly $72,000 annually. With the added overtime, he made over $115,000 in 2024.
While most law enforcement agencies throughout the Treasure Valley have plenty of opportunities for overtime, Basterrechea said Boise officers’ opportunities are “huge” because of things like Boise State University, which requires officers to work every college game.
“They’re way ahead of us there,” he added.
The Boise Police Department, meanwhile, spent nearly $5 million in overtime pay last fiscal year — $2.4 million over budget — and has dealt with high rates of overtime for years, citing staffing vacancies and increased needs.
This fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, the department set an overtime budget of nearly $3.6 million. By March, it had already spent more than $2.2 million in overtime, in step with recent years, according to a quarterly financial report.
Despite that, the department expects to be within its overtime budget this year, spokesperson Haley Williams told the Statesman. The agency’s overtime and staffing situation is “very complex,” she said, with extra officers needed for large investigations, staffing for special events, or covering vacant positions.
“We think we can decrease the amount of overtime we had been using, because we have a smaller vacancy rate than years past,” Williams said in an email, “but we will not be able to cut down on all overtime needs due to the nature of police work.”
Ada County losing people to Boise PD as well, sheriff says
Meridian isn’t the only one losing people to its next-door neighbor.
Ada County Sheriff Matt Clifford, whose agency employs over 800 people, said in a phone interview that he’s lost five employees in the last year and a half to the Boise Police Department. It’s a “weird dynamic” of wanting to see officers in Boise get the raises they need, Clifford said, while acknowledging that his deputies also need a pay increase.
Roughly 430 of the Sheriff’s Office employees are uniformed personnel. Of the five deputies who left for Boise, three worked in patrol and the other two in detention, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The problem isn’t recruitment, according to Sheriff’s Office Administrative Services Bureau Deputy Director Chris Saunders.
He told the County Commission at a June budget hearing that while they’re able to get deputies in the door, retaining them is a concern. Losing an experienced deputy costs Ada County around $380,000, Saunders said, because of the academy and training costs throughout the deputy’s career.
“That’s a lot of money that walks out the door when we lose somebody who’s been with us for 10 years — basically in the middle of their career,” Saunders said.
The Sheriff’s Office’s base salary for patrol deputies is $31.20 an hour, or nearly $65,000 a year, an amount that, like Meridian’s, surpasses Boise’s. But Clifford has the same concerns as Basterrechea.
Boise’s medical package is “a lot” cheaper for employees than Ada County’s, Clifford said. Boise’s retirement options also surpass those of Ada County, he said, and deputies are sitting down and comparing.
“They’re smarter at math than you think,” he jokingly told the county commissioners at the budget hearing.
Employees in Ada County, Boise and Meridian are enrolled in the Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho, the state-run pension fund for state and local-government employees, but they also have additional deferred compensation plans, including a 457(b) plan, which is essentially a 401(k) plan for government employees that lets them set aside part of their paychecks for retirement, often with employer matching contributions.
In Ada County, up to 3% of an employee’s salary will be matched. It’s 2% in Meridian. Boise contributes 6.2% of any police employee’s salary annually, without the employee needing to contribute.
Clifford also pointed to shift differentials and specialty pay for working in specific jobs like detectives and field-training officers, which is money the Sheriff’s Office doesn’t offer and doesn’t plan to. He said he doesn’t want money to be the incentive for a deputy to take on additional duties.
This budget cycle, Clifford asked the County Commission for an 8.2% wage increase for patrol deputies. But that didn’t happen. Patrol deputies, along with all other Sheriff’s Office and county employees, are expected to receive 4%, he said.
Clifford said he intends to try for another raise next year. He emphasized that officers all over the Valley need to be well paid and trained. He said that makes for better officers, and that’s what people in the community care about.
“Most people don’t care what color your uniform is; what shape your badge is; what your patch looks like,” he said. “They just know ‘I need a cop here right now.’”
This story was originally published July 21, 2025 at 4:00 AM.
