Another police hire could come soon
Retiring officers creating turnover on force
With 2021 already in its sixth month, Lansdale’s police department is looking ahead to 2022, and beyond.
Council’s public safety committee has recommended the town start the hiring process for at least one new officer, a process police Chief Mike Trail said is meant to be prepared for pending retirements.
“Do I have a crystal ball, to know I’m going to lose an officer in the next year? No,” said Trail.
“Do I have indications from one of the eligible people that they are strongly considering retiring? Yes,” he said.
In March 2021 the department finalized two new hires, one of which had previously worked as a part-time officer with the department, and said the two were meant to fill vacancies from one resignation and a retirement. Those two hires were the first since borough council approved a change in the town’s civil service rules last year, meant to widen the field of available candidates to include those from more diverse
“We are seeing officers leave this profession in droves. Larger departments are experiencing serious issues. Smaller departments are starting to see it now.” — Police Chief Mike Trail
backgrounds.
Trail and councilwoman Meg Currie Teoh, chair of council’s public safety committee, said Wednesday night that the committee has held ongoing talks about the department’s staffing
levels, and how many officers the department should have out on the streets, against how many are available now.
“We have since hired two officers, bringing us up to a somewhat healthier level of 25. But in reality, we’re working with 24, because we have one officer out on extended long-term disability,” Teoh said.
“Additionally, we have one or two more who are eligible to retire in February (2022), so if that goes through, potentially we could be down to 23 or 22. Just like that, we’d be back in the position of playing catch-up,” she said.
The two hires already made this year were at the top of a fresh candidate list developed by the town’s civil service commission, Teoh said, which is tasked with fielding applications and testing candidates that go on a list of names council can consider hiring.
“There’s still a couple of folks eligible from that list, so this will give us the opportunity to move proactively, to have replacements in place” if any more officers depart, Teoh said.
One of the two candidates could be done with field training and deployed to the borough streets by this upcoming fall, while the second candidate would need to complete formal police academy training, and would not be fully ready until spring 2022. Hiring prior to that training could be a benefit to the borough, she said: since they’re not fully trained, the starting salary for that candidate could be lower than the town currently pays for entry-level officers.
“It could end up being a net savings for next year,” if the older officers at higher pay rates do retire and
are replaced with younger hires, she said.
Mayor Garry Herbert added that the proposals for two new hires are an outgrowth of conversations he and the public safety committee have had over the past two years, to determine the department’s staffing levels based on population growth and new approaches to policing.
“This is hiring we have to do. This is proactive, to get to the number we have to be at,” he said.
“The opportunity for the younger officers, who are
coming in, to learn from the officers that are going out, which is so valuable and so needed — you don’t want to lose the experience,” Herbert said.
Council President Denton Burnell asked if Trail thought the department could be “over-staffed,” if one or more new hires are approved now and the older officers decide not to retire right away. Trail answered that council’s recent policy has been to approve new hires only after an officer has retired, a process that carries costs.
“It always puts us back: it puts the community back six to eight months, and costs money and overtime” to fill shifts when force levels are down, Trail said.
One officer in 2020 had indicated that they were staying in the department past the start of their retirement eligibility, he added, but the nationwide protests and anti-police sentiment seen across the country later that summer may have changed that officers’ mind.
“Once you become retire-able, and eligible, then when you have a bad day
there’s a lot of hand-wringing. Like, ‘Why am I still here, when I can leave?’” Trail said.
Herbert added that various formulas and models discussed by the public safety committee for determining police staffing based on a town’s population have indicated Lansdale should have more officers than even the new hires.
“That number comes in somewhere between 26 and
28. That’s the full number. So even if we did this, and one retired, we would still be at
26. So the risk of over-staffing is pretty low right now,” he said.
Council President Denton Burnell said he would be “fully on board with spending a little bit more to have some overlap.” Councilwoman Mary Fuller agreed, saying Trail had only asked the committee to discuss force levels, but had not yet asked for any action.
“I was the one that preferred to move it forward. I feel strongly about it. I think the reasoning is sound. I think it makes all kind of financial sense,” she said.
“Public safety is the foundation of any community. That needs to be first and foremost. To do that, we need a proper complement of officers, and well-trained officers, and some overlap with incoming and outgoing. I don’t see a downside here,” Fuller said.
Councilwoman Carrie Hawkins Charlton asked if the new hire or hires would be considered full department employees, if hired at lower pay rates than fully trained and certified officers. Trail said they would, and that he and the town’s police union would work with the borough civil service commission to develop a provisional status that complies with the hiring rules amended last year.
“It’s probably one of the best decisions, I believe, that the civil service commission has made, and council made, opening up our hiring pool to get us more diversity in the ranks,” Trail said.
“They would be on our payroll, they would be an employee of the borough, but they would have to hit all of these benchmarks: finishing the academy, passing certifications, passing the field training program, and then they would be a fully competent officer,” he said.
Resident Bill Allen asked how long the town’s latest civil service candidate list is valid, and Trail said it would be good for roughly one year starting just before the March hires. Allen then asked if those candidates were still available, and if so would that mean they were less qualified than others.
“If I didn’t feel there were qualified candidates on this list, I wouldn’t be sitting here advocating for the hiring,” Trail said.
“It’s not about filling a car with a body. It’s about getting a good, quality person,” he said.
Burnell asked if any of the potential retirees had entered into the department’s DROP program, to indicate a willingness to time their retirement. Trail said none had done so yet, but he’s seen the toll that long days and nights, and particularly the past year, has taken.
“I personally believe, 25 years of doing this job, day in, day out, takes a toll on our men and women of law enforcement,” he said. “I don’t fault anybody for wanting to leave when they’ve done their time.”
Allen asked if the department had seen fewer candidates apply for vacant spots than in prior years; Trail said that’s a problem he’s hoping to avoid.
“We are seeing officers leave this profession in droves. Larger departments are experiencing serious issues. Smaller departments are starting to see it now,” he said.
Older officers retiring, and fewer candidates incoming, could mean a department working short-staffed for longer periods of time, which Trail said could lead to more frequent problems like traffic and parking issues that more officers would be better able to address.
“The reason we’re seeing these problems is that we’re busy. Our men and women are tied up. I can guarantee you, if you give me more officers, I promise you we will see more officers on the street, engaged in traffic enforcement, and education, and addressing some of these concerns,” Trail said.
What if a candidate does not finish every step of the hiring process? “Then they would violate the terms of their offer,” Trail said.
Other departments can and do require that officers stay with that department for certain numbers of years if that town pays for their training, the chief added, and Lansdale could opt to do the same.
“They require you to stay there a number of years, so they get a return on their investment. Pottstown comes to mind, I worked in Baltimore and I had to stay there, that’s not uncommon,” he said.
“We haven’t done this in the borough since 1991. The last person the borough hired, without the academy training, was Lt. (Alex) Kromdyk, so the borough paid to put him through the academy,” Trail said.
In that case, Kromdyk was a 28-year-old U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps veteran who worked as a private investigator for a year while training, and that training led to a career that lasted for 27 years — including as a training officer for Trail — until Kromdyk retired as the department’s first lieutenant in half a century, and acting police chief in 2017.
“At least we have one good success story there,” Fuller said. Lansdale’s borough council next meets at 7 p.m. on June 16 at borough hall, 1 Vine St. For more information visit www.Lansdale.org.