Chesterfield County officials have scraped together $900,000 to help the police department raise starting officer salaries and give raises to veterans in an effort to keep Chesterfield competitive with other area jurisdictions.

County leaders will implement the first phase of the plan Sept. 6.

"To address the retention issues, we focused on officers and detectives and first-line supervisors," Acting Major Dan Kelly said today.

Among other things, the funds will be used to raise the department's starting salary from $38,000 to $39,000, "to help us remain competitive in the area for recruiting officers."

Also, officers with two years experience will get a 4 percent raise. Officers at other levels of the department's career development plan also will get pay increases of various amounts.

The department also will address pay compression issues by increasing seniority raises to $600 per year. For example, a starting officer will receive $39,000. An officer with one year experience will get $39,600, a two-year officer $41,200, and so forth.

"[Now] we separate years of service by $200," Kelly said.

The pay adjustments come three months after an internal report was publicly released that said Chesterfield would continue to lose officers to other law-enforcement agencies and the private sector unless the county took action.

The department hired 289 officers since 2001 but lost 215 officers during that same period -- with a large majority leaving voluntarily for reasons other than retirement, the report said. Pay and benefits that lag other area police departments is driving the exodus, the report said.