North Little Rock police will begin a revamped recruiting program today that will speed up the hiring process for entry-level officers and also aims to attract experienced lawmen through financial incentives.
Department officials said testing for applicants, including written exams and physical assessments, is now offered at least twice per month. Testing had occurred just two or three times per year in the past.
Additionally, the department has started accepting job applications online.
Police Chief Mike Davis said those changes should shorten the hiring process from five months to three months. He said it will yield more qualified candidates and get them into the training academy, which lasts about six months, faster than in the past.
Davis, who is in his fourth year as police chief, said the department is seeking to fill longstanding officer vacancies. The agency is 10 officers short of the 186 it's authorized to hire, even after three recruits graduated from its training academy Friday.
Another five officers are on military leave.
"Luckily, here in North Little Rock, we're not that short yet," Davis said. "But we don't want to get in that position."
The hiring initiative comes as law enforcement agencies across the country have struggled to fill their ranks. From major cities including New York, Houston and Los Angeles to smaller cities such as Sauk City, Wis., and Monte Vista, Col., police departments have reported significant officer vacancies.
Trumann Police Chief Chad Henson said police departments throughout Arkansas have had the same recruiting problems. Henson is president of the Arkansas Association of Police Chiefs, which counts more than 275 active and retired law enforcement officials among its members.
"Every chief I've talked to has fewer applications than when they started," he said.
National law enforcement groups have blamed the trend on a labor market that's become more competitive as the economy has improved. They've also said that public criticism of police -- departments across the country have faced civil unrest, racial tension and costly litigation over officer-involved shootings -- has made the job less desirable for some.
"The last couple years in law enforcement have not been years that people have come to you and said, 'Hey, I want to be a police officer,'" Davis said.
That makes existing police officers more valuable, according to North Little Rock police.
As part of its new recruiting program, the department is offering higher starting salaries for experienced officers. Lawmen with at least two years of experience now start at $40,600 per year. Officers with at least five years of experience start at $45,749 per year.
In the past, any officer new to the department was paid the rookie salary of $38,600 per year.
Davis said he expects the new pay system to attract officers from other law enforcement agencies.
"Hopefully, across the country," he said.
The North Little Rock Police Department isn't the first to seek out experienced officers to fill its ranks. Police in San Francisco, Dallas and Seattle are among the many agencies that have practiced so-called lateral entry hiring for years.
Henson, who has nearly 20 years of law enforcement experience, said it's common for departments to fish from the same pond, so to speak, when it comes to recruiting. He said that incentives such as salary bonuses, take-home vehicles and pensions are a way for departments to land the best candidates.
"I applaud North Little Rock for being proactive in the recruiting effort," Henson said. "It makes every law enforcement agency and chief of police raise their game, if you will."
Other departments have, indeed, raised their game.
Little Rock police this year started paying bonuses to entry-level officers. Eight officers who graduated on Friday each received a $5,000 check to go along with their starting salary of $41,000, the highest in the state for rookie police officers.
But the department is still 73 officers short of the 590 it's authorized to hire.
Little Rock police spokesman officer Richard Hilgeman said the department does not have a system to hire experienced officers at higher salaries.
But that could change. The department announced in July that it was paying $120,000 for the International Association of Police Chiefs to audit its hiring procedures to examine how it can attract more job applicants. The findings will also be used to see whether the department can speed up its hiring process.
Davis, the North Little Rock police chief, said speed matters.
"We ended up losing three [recruits in the latest recruit class] that probably would have been hired here that went to other agencies within the county because they were quicker to get them hired and get them to work," he said.
"So we're just having to really think and be creative about how we recruit."
Metro on 02/06/2017