Ricardo Martinez, Nevada's public safety director, says he has "blown up" his annual budget in trying to hire new police officers. While the Nevada Police Department typically spends $6,000 a year on recruitment, Martinez said he hasalready spent around $24,000 this year on online advertising for vacant positions.
"The only thing I haven't done yet is billboards. And I've actually considered that," Martinez said.
Full staffing at the Nevada Public Safety Department, which patrols a population of around 6,667 residents,is equal to 11 full-time officers. Right now, the department has just five officers working. The starting wage is $25 an hour.
Having been with the department since 2004, Martinez said, "I don't remember the last time it's ever been this bad."
Police departments across the country are strugglingto recruit and retain officers, building on a yearslong trend. The number of police officers nationwide has declined since 2013, and the rate of police officers per 1,000 residents has been dropping for two decades, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
The number of officers in a city is not necessarily associated with crime rates, a 2019 USA Today investigation found.But for the officers on the ground performing the same duties with a reduced workforce, overtime hours and solo patrols are taxing.
"You're working more days and you get fewer days off," Martinez said. "It's great on payday, but the time in between, it's tough."
In the Nevada Police Department, one officer is deployed in Iraq and another recent hire won't graduate the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy until August. That leaves three positions for the department to fill.
Four officers have left Nevada fromAugust 2020 to April of this year, Martinez said.
Three of the officers left for other departments, sometimes moving for family-related reasons. One officer left law enforcement altogether.
"Right now, law enforcement is kind of under a microscope ... he was getting a lot of criticism from friends and family," Martinez said, referencing the weeks after former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd.
A police department in a small city like Nevada "is going to have turnover,"Martinez said, becausepeople often leave for opportunities in larger departments. Someone who wants to be a narcotics officer or a canine officer won't find that job in Nevada, Martinez said.
But typical turnover for the department is losing one to two officers a year. Now, not only do officers work overtime but they also work more shifts alone, Martinez said. Nevada has one officer working part-time, and the city's fire chief Ray Reynolds, a certified police officer, also picks up occasional shifts.
The Ames Police Department, which is budgeted for 57 officers, is down five officers. Two more are set to leave in the next month, according to Cmdr. Jason Tuttle. Ames police make between$27.33 and $37.76 an hour.
"This will be the largest number of officers we've been down since I've been here in 21 years," Tuttle said.
The five officers left within the last year and a half. One officer retired, and the rest are no longer in policing.
Tuttle said those individuals left the profession due to several factors, including the added stress of the pandemic— "we didn't get the chance to work from home," he said. Increased scrutiny of policing during Black Lives Matterprotests have also impacted staffing, Tuttle said.
"People are burnt out of the job and some don't feel supported by the community," Tuttle said. "We actually had two candidates this last recruitment that emailed us toward the end of the process and said they're withdrawing their application due to the ... political environment that we're in around policing."
The Iowa State University Police Department had 11 officers leave between July 2019 and July 2020, according to Chief Michael Newton. Eight officers have left from July 2020 to now.
While ISU police have not experienced an unusual number of departures, Newton said finding high-quality applicants has been "a little harder ... but they're out there." The starting salary is between $51,962.32and$54,264a year.
The department has eight or nine vacancies, with 32 officers currently working.
Some people join campus law enforcement and find that they prefer more traditional policing assignments, Newton said. He also cited criticism of law enforcement as a reason why officers choose other jobs.
"We have a great group of officers here ... but the fact that they're being painted in the same way as these bad officers is really hurtful to them. And some of them don't want to deal with that anymore," Newton said.
Nevada is offering a $5,000 bonus for certified officers, which will be granted one year after the hiring date. The department has never offered a hiring bonus before, Martinez said.
In addition to sharing job postings on social media, Ames has tried to increase the number of applicants who pass fitness tests and other assessments. The department has held exercise classes and offered study sessions to help candidates prepare for their oral boards. While there is typically only one police recruitment process a year, Ames has done three in the past year and a half, Tuttle said.
"It's a challenge— we have to continue to try to think outside the box and brainstorm. Because the last thing we would do is lower our standards," Tuttle said.
Newton said pushing information online about the ISU Police Department's benefits package has helped garner more applications. He also said he is waiting on the Board of Regents to approve hiring bonuses, which will be anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 depending on an officer's experience level.
"We're looking to try and recruit certified officers because ... to get an officer fully trained, it can cost close to $100,000," Newton said."And so, doing some incentives to bring in people who are already certified saves us a lot of dollars."
Still, Newton said, "it's a really tricky timerecruiting with the current sentiment that's out there."
Every profession will have "those bad eggs," Martinez said, adding, "it's easyto be critical. For the most part, police officers do a good job ... but do we need to take a look at our profession and maybe possibly look at changes?Absolutely."
Isabella Rosario is a public safety reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached by email at irosario@gannett.com or on Twitter at @irosarioc.
