City looks at ways to recruit new police officers

City eyes paying new recruits as they go through police academy training

The city of Medford may start paying people to go through police training in order to fill current and future vacancies on the city police force.

Police chief Chad Liske proposed the plan at Monday’s city council committee of the whole meeting. Liske said they have been short an officer since July 28 and have posted for the position on the state’s WILENET website which is where law enforcement positions are posted.

In the first month the position was posted, they received applications from three candidates, none of whom met the qualifications for employment. In the second month, the city received two more applications from candidates. According to Liske neither of those met the department’s standards.

He said that as of October 6, there were 56 postings for full-time police officers on WILENET. This does not include positions for deputy in Sheriff’s Offices.

Liske said he looked at what other departments around the region and state were doing and suggested the city begin offering sponsorship through the Wisconsin Police Recruit Academy.

The academy is 720 hours of police training. The local training is offered through Northcentral Technical College. He proposed two options.

In the first option the city would hire a candidate and they would be sworn in as an officer with the city paying them at a reduced hourly rate to attend the academy. As a sponsored candidate, Liske said the state of Wisconsin would pay the cost of the academy training if they were successful and graduated from it. The risk of this is that if the individual was unsuccessful, the city would be on the hook for the cost of the training. Academy costs currently run about $5,000 to $6,000.

In the second option, the city would offer a reimbursement of the training costs as a hiring incentive. Employment would be made contingent on successful completion. The employee would be reimbursed for the academy expense on a yearly basis over a three year period.

The benefit of the second option is that it opens the door for those already in the academy program to apply and get a benefit and that it protects the city from having an employee go through the training and immediately leave to a different department.

Liske said the Taylor County Sheriff’s Department follows a similar concept, but he noted the county has tapped into people who were already working as jailers and had gone through the full hiring process for those positions. Liske explained that Wausau uses the first option for their recruitment and currently pays the officer recruits 80% of the rate of the starting officer pay. The city already does this for new officers during their initial period after being hired, and Liske suggested they would go to 70% or 75% for the training wage.

He said that in order to be “sponsored” they would have to be fully employed by the city. Essentially he said they would need to go through the full hiring process with completion of the academy as a condition of employment. The risk would be if someone dropped out of the academy or otherwise did not complete it. He said they could have them sign an agreement to reimburse the city for the training cost, but that other departments have run into difficulty in collecting on them. He said it is possible to spend more in lawyer fees in court trying to collect than what the training costs are. “There is definitely some risk,” Liske said.

The down side of either option is that it drags out the hiring process further. The 720-hour academy course is 18 weeks long with the next course offered through Northcentral Technical College beginning in January and running into May. Beyond that, the new officer would have field training where they would be paired with a veteran officer for 12 more weeks. He said this would mean it could be July or August before the new officer is on their own.

Liske noted the department is currently filling the open position in the department through overtime shifts and scheduling, but said this is becoming stressful for the officers especially on weekends. He said this is only going to become more challenging after receiving the formal retirement notice from Det. Mike Schroeder effective January 18. “We will be down another officer at that time,” Liske said.

Council member Ken Coyer supported sponsoring a candidate to go through the academy. He explained that this was the common way to hire officers in the 1980s and in the 1990s when he became an officer. “It is something that has been going on for years and years,” he said, noting that was how he went through the academy training.

Council member Greg Knight also favored the idea. “We need incentives to make it easier to sign up and give it a try,” he said, noting covering the training costs would be an incentive.

“My fear is they complete the academy here and someone poaches them for Waukesha or Green Bay,” said council member Mike Bub. He said he favored the second option with the reimbursement after completion. “I want them to have a little bit of their skin in the game,” Bub said.

Council member Laura Holmes asked Liske which of the options he preferred. Liske said that in a perfect world he would say to sponsor someone and pay them a reduced training rate to attend the program.

Council member Christine Weix agreed with offering the training comparing it to what skilled trade positions are doing in the private sector. “This is a skilled apprenticeship, which is what every skilled trade is going to right now,” she said, noting that it is a risk versus rewards situation.

“We are all in agreement here,” Bub said, making the motion to recommend the first option. That motion passed unanimously. Following the vote, Coyer raised the question of if they should give the police chief flexibility to use either option depending on the candidate.

“I would prefer to leave it flexible for Chad,” he said. City clerk Ashley Lemke suggested the council members think about it further since the final action won’t be taken until next week’s city council meeting and the recommendation will be on the agenda for that meeting.

Poll workers

The city is looking to revamp its existing electionrelated ordinance to mirror state law and give more flexibility to the clerk for scheduling workers to run the polls.

The current ordinance requires the city to have 13 poll workers at every election with the clerk having the ability to bring that number up to 15 for presidential primary and general elections when a higher turnout is expected. In addition, two more poll workers may be hired to relieve workers during mealtime breaks.

By comparison, the state law requires a minimum of seven poll workers with smaller municipalities allowed to use less than that. Lemke said there are times when she does not need 13 inspectors based on what is on the ballot. She also asked council members to allow for split shifts for poll workers.

Currently poll workers work the entire election day which usually means being there around 6:30 a.m. before the polls open and working to 8:30 to 9 p.m. or even to midnight depending on the election.

While Lemke said there is some value to having the same people there from start to finish if issues arise, she said it gets to be a very long and tiring day for the poll workers. “The day will come when getting elections officials on board will be like pulling teeth,” Lemke said, noting that being able to offer split shifts would help get more poll workers.

Committee members voted to recommend making the ordinance changes.

In other business, council members:

  Recommended making a change in the city’s employee vacation time giving two additional vacation days at year five of employment rather than having employees wait until year 9 and changing the number of years at each vacation step to mirror what was approved as part of the police union contract.

  Recommended approval of a new comprehensive sewer ordinance. According to wastewater superintendent Alex Zenner, the major changes were to update the citations to state laws and codes. The ordinance had last been reviewed in 1988. Council member Clem Johnson asked who keeps track of the ordinance. Lemke said one of the reasons they are going with looser language is to reduce the need for council to review a 29 page ordinance every time a state law changes. The ordinance is ultimately enforced by city planner Bob Christensen.

  Received word that the city will need to close TID 6 in addition to the ones closed earlier this year in order for TID 14 to be started. According to city coordinator Joe Harris, TID 6 which included the second city water tower and parts of Industrial Park No. 2 is fully paid off and this will advance the closure of the TID by about two months. “It is nothing major,” Harris said of the change.