{"id":128685,"date":"2026-01-23T03:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/128685\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:41:08","slug":"fort-myers-police-union-demands-higher-pay-to-retain-officers-lee-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/128685\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Myers police union demands higher pay to retain officers | Lee County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>FORT MYERS &#8211; The Fort Myers Police Department union is making it clear that higher pay and better benefits are crucial, not just requests.<\/p>\n<p>Union President Jari Sanders said, &#8220;Unfortunately, it makes them start to look elsewhere.&#8221; He emphasized that it&#8217;s about retaining officers, not just pay or benefits.<\/p>\n<p>Since October, the department has lost over 17 members, including dispatchers and officers. Sanders said, &#8220;That number is only going to continue to grow until we get something done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Negotiations between the union and the city have been ongoing since last fall. The union is pushing for competitive pay, as studies show Fort Myers officers earn about 18% less than the average officer in Florida.<\/p>\n<p>Sanders said, &#8220;The union is just asking for competitive wages comparable to what the city showed us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The city declined to comment on the negotiations, citing the sensitivity of the matter. If no decision is reached by Tuesday, the discussion will move to a magistrate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS &#8211; The Fort Myers Police Department union is making it clear that higher pay and better&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,28,897,63612,3737,32910,63611,63613],"class_list":{"0":"post-128685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cape-coral","8":"tag-cape-coral","9":"tag-cape-coral-headlines","10":"tag-cape-coral-news","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-fort-myers","13":"tag-fort-myers-palms","14":"tag-fort-myers-police","15":"tag-magistrate","16":"tag-police-strikes","17":"tag-union-president"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}