Recruitment, retention challenge YPD

Applicants disqualified by using marijuana in legal states

Recruitment and retention top the list of “critical” challenges facing the Yuma Police Department.

During the city council’s recent retreat, Police Chief John Lekan said fewer people are applying for police officer positions and of those who apply more are being disqualified during background checks.

“We’re losing them in that background check (phase). I’m not sure why. I can speculate. We have a generation that may have made bad decisions,” Lekan said.

Some of those bad decisions may have had to do with applicants “partaking” of marijuana in states where the drug is legal, such as California and Colorado, but the Arizona Peace Officer Standards and Training Board, which certifies police officers, has not changed its standards. It still requires applicants to be drug-free, whether they consumed marijuana legally or illegally.

The AZPOST minimum qualifications indicate that an individual seeking certification must not have used marijuana within the past three years nor hard drugs or narcotics within the past seven years.

Further aggravating the problem, Lekan said, is that some marijuana edible products have become so potent that AZPOST considers them the same as hard drugs. Consequently, the three-year wait becomes a seven-year wait.

“Time can get them back on board,” Lekan said.

But in that time, some applicants might lose interest or start a new career in a different field.

And for the first time, due to a lack of applicants, Arizona Western College canceled the police academy this year.

Another challenge is at least 12 officers who are active-duty National Guardsmen will likely be deployed this year.

“They’re getting orders. We may be down four or five this year or maybe more. Others are on standby,” Lekan explained.

Turnover has slowed a bit more recently. The de-

partment lost 35 officers in 2015, 18 in 2016 and 13 in 2017.

Although the department has continued working on a competitive pay plan and now has performance pay, it’s still on the low side and some officers leave after about five years on the force.

Police departments around the nation are constantly on the hunt for officers who hit this five-year “sweet spot.” Lekan said the Seattle police chief said his department specifically targets Yuma for new recruits.

He recognized that Yuma will probably continue to be a training ground and the force will lose officers after five years.

“That’s the reality now,” Lekan said.

He pointed out that the 35-40 officers the department hired a few years ago will hit the five-year “marketable point” in about two years and he’s afraid there will be a mass exodus as officers seek better pay elsewhere.

Already YPD has nine vacancies (and one more since Lekan made the presentation). The department has 169 sworn officers but has the funding for 178 personnel, not much different from the 177 it had 10 years ago.

“We’ve stayed pretty much around that number. We added some civilians that took some of the responsibilities,” the chief noted.

“Civilizing” some duties is one way that the department is dealing with declining recruitment. It not only saves money, but shifting some duties to civilians gets more officers out on the street.

Lekan noted there might be a time when civilians are better trained and have more expertise than sworn officers.

It’s also one way to deal with the skyrocketing costs of the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System

But the department can’t go overboard with “civilizing” too much. Lekan noted that while many civilians are better trained in some duties, such as collecting evidence and processing a crime scene, police officers are better at tracking and catching the suspect.

While some civilian employees later become sworn officers, some choose to stay civilian for several reasons, among them: they don’t want to carry a gun or a Taser and they don’t want to go out in the field and get dirty.

The civilian force is dominated by females and they are usually “very longterm” employees. The department currently has 100 funded positions, with four vacancies, including two for dispatchers, one public safety technician and one polygraph examiner. YPD is contracting a polygrapher right now.

In spite of the challenges, City Administrator Greg Wilkinson said YPD is “doing better than some agencies so I wouldn’t be so hard on our recruiting.”

Councilman Edward Thomas pointed out that as long as the city doesn’t have competitive pay, they would keep losing officers.

“I’m not comfortable remaining as a training ground for other cities,” he said, adding the city loses tax dollars spent on training these “treasures.”

“If we continue to stay at the bottom, that’s what we are going to be,” Thomas noted.

Lekan said some of the ideas have included having recruits sign contracts and giving bonuses to recruiters when a recruit signs on.

Councilwoman Leslie McClendon suggested that some of the positions should have specialized titles and require specific skills, rather than just a general position, to attract more applicants interested in certain fields within police work.

Younger generations find titles more appealing than broader job descriptions, she added.

“I honestly believe that the generations we’re dealing with now don’t know what a police officer is,” Lekan said.

Councilman Mike Shelton said the department should play up the strengths of the community. “We are Yuma, Ariz. We have a lot of strengths. It’s one of the best places on earth.”