Ben-Gvir announces salary hike for police officers without finance ministry approval

A dispute broke out on Thursday between the National Security Ministry and the Finance Ministry after National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel Police Commissioner David Levy, and Israel Prison Service (IPS) head Kobi Yaakobi announced a salary raise for thousands of police officers without coordinating in advance with Finance Ministry officials

This dispute continues a public spat between Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich over, among other issues, Ben-Gvir’s dissatisfaction with his ministry’s expected 2025 budget.

The new dispute began on Wednesday after Ben-Gvir, Levy, and Yaakobi wrote to police and prison service officers that their “operational level,” which determines salary, would be bumped up retroactively due to the ongoing war. As a result, they would receive the accompanying higher salary in their next paycheck.

The “operational level” determines salary levels based on distinctions between field officers, who have a higher operational level, and staffers. An ensuing letter from the police’s human resources branch clarified that the raise would only apply to the first three months of the war, from October 7, 2023, to January 6, 2024.

Security Ministry justifies the move

The National Security Ministry justified the move on Thursday by arguing that pursuant to a past government decision, the minister, alongside the police chief and IPS head, had the authority to determine operational levels, just as the IDF chief of staff has the authority to determine operational levels in the IDF.

The ministry added that it had been negotiating with Finance Ministry officials “for over a year [to] implement stipends and salary raises that were promised to police officers” but that the Finance Ministry had refused to sign any agreement.

A National Security Ministry spokesperson explained that the statement was referring to a 2023 provision to raise police officers’ salaries by NIS 3,000 in three NIS 1,000 waves, beginning in 2024 and continuing at the start of 2025 and 2026.

The spokesperson said that the first wave was completed, but in current discussions over the 2025 budget, the Finance Ministry was refusing to enact the second wave.

The decision on Wednesday to raise operational levels was a move to attempt to gain more leverage against the Finance Ministry, the spokesperson admitted.

Finance Ministry officials responded by writing that the decision to unilaterally increase operational levels was illegal. The officials pointed out that, unlike the IDF, changes to operational levels in the police and prison service needed to be approved by an oversight committee and required a number of other approvals as well before they could be carried out.

In a rare occurrence, the police commissioner himself responded to the Finance Ministry’s opinion. Levy criticized the ministry for “attempting to harm police officers’ salaries” and accused it of “actively weakening the police” and therefore harming national security. Ben-Gvir backed Levy, saying the ministry’s conduct was a “disgrace.”

The dispute comes amid a broader battle between Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, who ran on a joint list in the 2022 election but have become increasingly hostile to each other. The battle entered a new phase on Monday after Ben-Gvir accused Smotrich of being the only one to refuse to initiate a process to fire Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.

Ben-Gvir then ordered the MKs in his Otzma Yehudit party to vote against the first reading of the national budget that Smotrich presented in the Knesset plenum on Monday.