Police Pay a Victory for Coach Sid and Parish

For years, we have called for adequate pay for Baton Rouge City Police. See “Sheriff, BRPD Must Be Fully Funded,” Central City News for November 2025.

The current starting pay of $41,000 is a disgrace! On Wednesday, the Metro Council voted to raise starting pay to $58,000.

Congratulations to Mayor-President Sid Edwards for fighting hard and not compromising on finding the money to adequately pay our police officers without a tax increase!

You will recall that former Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome fought tooth and nail against creation of the City of St. George because she argued it would leave the parish bankrupt.

That was false. This parish has long had the money to meet all reasonable needs of the people.  But we have needed a fiscally conservative administration that would scrub the budget and eliminate the ridiculous fraud, waste, and abuse in City-Parish finance.

Last month we highlighted the plight of BRPD detective Simon Newsome, an outstanding seven-year veteran of the force with five children who was being paid only $45,000, poverty wages, to risk his life everyday. Simon left the force to take a job paying $75,000 at the Fayetteville Police Department. See Central City News for Mar. 27.

It is sad that we lost Simon and other fine officers. But their struggle let the public know how desperate the situation is.

We note that Parish Attorney Greg Rome has departed. We wish him no ill will.  However, we observe that he and the Metro Council tried unsuccessfully to silence the Central City News in its coverage of Metro Council slush funds.