NHPD
With 62 vacancies on the police force, the city is launching an effort to recruit another class of rookies.
Rob Smuts, the city’s chief administrative officer, said the city is preparing to put together a recruitment test and hopes to seat a new class of up to 45 prospective cops in June of 2012.
Rick Epstein, chairman of the police commission, described the move as a natural “replenishment,” not a reaction to the current spike in homicides.
“The issue isn’t that we’re bulking up because there’s crime,” Epstein said. “We haven’t [seated] a class in two years. We need to replenish when officers leave.”
Cops wouldn’t hit the streets on their own until March 2013, Epstein calculated.
The size of the class will depend on three things, Smuts said: Whether the city gets a federal COPs grant it applied for to pay for 22 officers, which is looking more unlikely due to the nation’s budget woes; how many more cops retire; and how much money the city has in next year’s budget to pay for the positions.
The city currently has money in the budget for 420 filled sworn positions, Smuts said. Right now, it has 38 vacancies for police officers and another 25 vacancies in the upper ranks.
After some positions are left vacant, a $2.4 million “attrition cut” was taken from the police department budget and put towards the general fund, Smuts said. There’s still money to pay for new recruits to start toward the end of the current fiscal year, Smuts said: The big question is how much money there will be in the year that starts July 1, 2012.
The first step in the process will be to administer written, oral and physical agility tests. Money for the testing is included in this year’s human resources/chief administrative office budget, Smuts said.
Then the department will come up with a ranked list of candidates. Over the winter, the city will conduct background checks of people on that list. If the city uncovers something negative in the background check, the civil service commission may cross that name off the list.
In a change in policy this time around, shunned candidates will be able to appeal that decision and make their case before the police commission as to why they deserve a chance, according to Smuts. The police commission will then interview all candidates and decide who’s on the force using the Rule of Three, which means they must start from the top of the list and may skip over no more than two names.
If the class is seated by June 2012, officers will then go through a six-month training followed by three months shadowing senior officers on the job.
“So it’ll be March ‘13 before they’re out there by themselves,” Epstein said. “We’re a year and a half from these guys being of any value to the force.”