Kimball Police Chief Tommy JordanKIMBALL, Tenn. — When Mayor David Jackson called a meeting with the entire police department to discuss holiday pay last Wednesday, some officers got nervous.
Those anxious thoughts turned to joy when officers learned a clerical error meant they hadn’t been paid enough for the holiday for the last eight years.
On Thursday, the Kimball Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted unanimously to award $33,536 back pay, which will be distributed to current and former officers in various amounts.
Jackson said he was glad the mistake was discovered.
“It was an honest mistake, and luckily, we caught it this year,” he said. “This is money that the officers are due. They earned it. It’s the right thing to do. It was just an oversight, and I wish they had been getting it all along.”
In 2004, Jackson said the town converted from weekly to biweekly pay.
“We didn’t change our formula on how we pay our officers holiday pay,” he said. “So, since 2004, we’ve been shorting our officers holiday pay each year.”
City officials went back to 2004 and scrutinized each year through 2011 to determine what Kimball owed each of its current and former officers.
Officers who received raises during a given year were considered in the equations as well, Jackson said.
Police Chief Tommy Jordan thanked the board for all the current and former Kimball police officers.
“We didn’t know about it either,” he said. “It’s as good when you get it as when you were promised.”
Jordan joked that before the meeting, officers were afraid that the city was about to ask them for money.
“They were saying, ‘Uh-oh. Our pay was wrong and they’re fixing to ask us to give some of it back,'” he laughed.
Officers were very happy to get the news, Jordan said, and the city’s apology was certainly accepted.
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.