{"id":269328,"date":"2026-08-21T06:28:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:28:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269328\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T06:28:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T06:28:49","slug":"temple-university-shares-details-of-5-year-contract-aimed-at-police-recruitment-retention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/269328\/","title":{"rendered":"Temple University shares details of 5-year contract aimed at police recruitment, retention"},"content":{"rendered":"

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Temple University<\/a> is starting the new school year under a recently signed five-year contract with the union representing campus police officers, dispatchers and some security officers.<\/p>\n

University leaders say the deal, which was signed in June, will help recruit and retain personnel as students return to campus for the start of the fall semester.<\/p>\n

Classes begin Monday, and university officials say students are returning to a safe campus — thanks in part to the agreement, which provides salary increases, enhanced benefits and other quality-of-life improvements. University leaders also said the contract supports Temple’s recently launched strategic plan, “Forward with Purpose.”<\/p>\n

“Welcome back to one of the safest urban campuses in America,” Temple University President John Fry said Thursday.<\/p>\n

The agreement raises salaries for police officers to levels that compete with those offered by the Philadelphia Police Department, according to university officials.<\/p>\n

“So, a starting salary for a recruit officer — which means they’re gonna go to the police academy — would be about $68,000 a year,” said Andrew Lanetti, President of the Temple University Police Association.<\/p>\n

University officials said that figure is about the same as the starting salary for newly recruited Philadelphia police officers.<\/p>\n

The contract is also intended to attract experienced officers. Under the agreement, Temple will offer about $92,000 annually to officers with three years of experience and $100,000 annually to officers with at least five years of experience.<\/p>\n

The compensation package also includes annual salary increases of 3%, as well as anniversary milestone increases of up to 6.5%.<\/p>\n

“Make sure those packages are compelling and competitive so as we go into the market to recruit officers, we’re going to be successful,” Fry said.<\/p>\n

University leaders said retaining current officers is another goal of the agreement.<\/p>\n

“We have a lot of great officers here and they’ve given many years of their life dedicated to the university and the community,” said Denise Wilhelm, Temple’s interim vice president for public safety.<\/p>\n

Safety remains a major concern for students on Temple’s urban campus.<\/p>\n

“Definitely in the surrounding areas, I feel like sometimes my safety can be infringed, so I’m happy that this new infrastructure is in place,” said Temple sophomore Brielle Bama.<\/p>\n

Temple officials said an independent study highlighted the need for the university to hire and train more officers. Fry said the salary increases were already budgeted as part of a long-term plan.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Temple University is starting the new school year under a recently signed five-year contract with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[113532,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-269328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-113532","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}