The highest-ranking supervisors in the Boston Police Department are expected to receive 14 percent salary boosts, which city officials say is necessary to keep their pay on par with that of the officers they oversee.
Commissioner Edward F. Davis said he recommended the salary increases for his command staff, which are expected to be approved by Mayor Thomas M. Menino in the next two weeks.
"These are very difficult decisions,'' Davis said. "We understand the whole fiscal emergency, but at some point you need to establish a level playing field, so that captains don't make more than the people who are supervising them.''
But taxpayer watchdog groups said such hikes are increasingly difficult to sustain in an economic climate that has caused the city to cut services and threaten to close community centers and libraries.
