Topic: Very Quick Salary Survey

[Deborah Plant]

Hi All,

Our laboratory is conducting a Salary Survey to see how our salaries compare with other forensic laboratories. I am sure that you can relate to these stats, but approximately 25% of our analysts have left over the last 3 years which is 16.5 years of training lost!!! Approximately 2/3’s are making more money in their new employment.

We currently do not have a ‘step’ plan in place and that causes a lot of problems such as an analyst that has been at the lab for 5 years is making approximately the same salary as an incoming analyst.

If you have a ‘step’ plan (Forensic Analyst 1, 2, 3, etc.) and would be willing to share it, I would really appreciate it.

Below is a link to a survey we are conducting. Please, pass this along to someone in your agency that could take a few minutes to complete it. If you have completed a salary survey and would be willing to share the results, that would be great.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/T6293XS

We will be sharing the responses with all who participate.  You can email me with your step plans, previous salary survey results, or any questions/comments at deborah.pumphrey@crimelab.arkansas.gov .

Thanks!

Deborah Pumphrey
Firearms & Tool Marks
Arkansas State Crime Laboratory
PO Box 8500
Little Rock, AR 72215
 deborah.pumphrey@crimelab.arkansas.gov
voice: 501-683-6173  fax: 501-227-0713

[Laura Draga]

The Florida laboratory system also has a high turnover rate. From Tampa Bay Times article "FDLE Commissioner Richard Swearingen told Scott and the Cabinet last month that the crime lab is struggling in part because it can't hold on to lab technicians. In the last six years, FDLE has lost 127 crime lab analysts and crime lab analyst supervisors, representing a turnover of 44 percent....It's one of the reasons Swearingen said he is asking this fall for Scott and the Cabinet to raise the pay for a crime lab analyst by $10,000 and $12,000 for a senior analyst."

As far as your survey goes, I can point you to raw data:
Florida employee salaries are public record. The following link may give you insight into pay scales in our agency:
http://salaries.myflorida.com/
Click on FDLE under agency. Keep in mind, a person may have been hired with FDLE in a different position than their current one.

[Erin (Gould) Mulligan]

http://www.cacnews.org/survey/survey.shtml

CAC does an annual survey of a good number of the western states.