11-28-2016 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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Memo To: City Administrator Jessica Loftus From: Police Chief Correy Farniok Date November 21, 2016 Re: Police Department Staffing In a recent article (attached) it mentions a couple of topics, such as the "staging crisis" and how many officers does a department need? "Staffing Crisis" Orono PD is not immune to this and we are also going through our own "staging crisis". In the last two years we have lost 4 officers to other departments. 3 of those officers have all been hired by Edina Police Department and the fourth officer was hired by Minneapolis PD. We are not the only department that is experiencing this. South Lake PD has lost two officers, one to Eden Prairie and one to Minnetonka, Minnetrista has lost one officer to Edina PD, West Hennepin has lost one officer to the DNR and one to Eden Prairie PD, and Medina PD lost one officer to Minneapolis PD. The transition of officers from smaller departments to larger departments is occurring for several reasons. One of those reasons is that the applicant pool for new officers has decreased significantly over the last few years. The number of applications for officer positions have seen a drop by more than 50% for some neighboring departments. Of those individuals that are applying, there is a constant number of applicants that continue to apply but rarely advance in the process which results in few viable candidates. Our college programs are also seeing a decrease in the number of students entering the law enforcement programs. With these decreased number of students in the law enforcement program and fewer applicant for job postings, several departments are "recruiting" current officers from other departments. The "recruiting" has had a significant impact on our department. In exit interviews with two of the officers they said that they left Orono PD for Edina PD because they wanted more opportunities (K-9) and that Edina was busier. Additionally, the officers pay was also much higher than their current salary. Prior to these officers leaving, in the last 15 years we had only lost two officers to other agencies, one officer went to St. Louis County SO to be closer to family and the other was to Golden Valley to pursue supervisor opportunities. The four that left recently all had between 2 and 10 years with the department. Not one of these officers had reached top pay in our pay scale. When compared to our neighboring Lake Area police departments we do have several advantages, but these advantages diminish when compared to larger agencies 5-10 miles outside the Lake Minnetonka Area. Orono PD offers two school resources officer positions, a west metro drug task force position, and two investigative positions. These positions rotate every three years to provide officers with other opportunities to enhance their skills other than patrol. Officers can also participate as a member of the