State trooper applicants on rise to join depleted agency
About 1,900 people have applied to become state police troopers during the recruitment drive that began last month.
But it will be months before anyone is chosen to enter the police academy as the agency continues to struggle with maintaining its ranks.
There are 946 sworn state police officers, including 42 troopers who graduated from the State Police Academy this month, according to the state Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection, which encompasses the state police.
The 42 graduates will not be on the streets on their own for another 10 to
12 weeks. Another 43 troopers are either out on various types of leave or are on light duty, the agency said.
The state police budget faces a $2.7 million shortfall due to overtime costs in the 2019 fiscal year, which ends June 30, DESPP Commissioner James Rovella told the Appropriations Committee last month.
He’s making up the budget gap by diverting $1.2 million from the fleet account and another
$900,000 from workers compensation. But the bottom line is that he’ll continue to struggle for years with staffing shortages, even as Gov. Ned Lamont offered $1.25 million in 2020 to train additional troopers, if more money for hiring isn’t made available.
“It’s always going to be a catch-up,” he said. “We have to build in attrition into the budget.”
Rovella, who was appointed commissioner in December, was handed an agency down hundreds of staff members. When he started, nearly a dozen key state police units were short-staffed causing backlogs in every area from
18,000 gun sales that had not been entered into a registry to Freedom of Information requests, which had a nearly twoyear wait for document requests from the public.
He’s been able to narrow some of the gaps by shifting staff, but one of the main concerns has been keeping troopers patrolling highways and policing small towns with no law enforcement agencies.
In fiscal year 2019, the department had 61 troopers retire and another 18 resign, officials said.
There are plans to send
60 to 70 recruits to the academy in the coming months. Those recruits will be chosen from a list of 83 candidates.
The nearly 1,900 people and counting will be considered for a second academy class of 50 to 60. Rovella plans to start that class in the new year.
Those candidates will be required to pass an online test, undergo background checks and polygraph examinations after passing a physical fitness test. The list of candidates will remain active for future classes until it has been exhausted, officials said.
Even as more recruits are hired for the 2020 fiscal year, another 88 troopers will be eligible to retire during that time. By law, state police staffing should be at 1,201 — a level that hasn’t been reached in years. Rovella has determined by examining 10 years of overtime and attrition rates that 1,100 troopers is the ideal number when balancing overtime and the overall budget.
“To close the gap would require more money,” Rovella told legislators. “I’m not shy in going back to OPM (the state Office of Policy and Management) to ask for more money in 2021 if I can demonstrate the need.”