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As Job Applications Increase, Law Enforcement Agencies Hope Stimulus Funds Will Ease Cutbacks

By David Badertscher, PLL

The following article is from the May 1, 2009 Quinlan Law Enforcement E-News Alert, published by Thomson Reuters:

Human Resources: Law enforcement agencies hope stimulus funds will ease cutbacks

With the current recession, job seekers are increasingly looking at law enforcement as a good career move. But, unfortunately for these applicants, they're likely to find that police departments and sheriffs' offices are trimming their budgets or are struggling just to maintain their current roster of officers.

In some instances, law enforcement agencies are hoping that federal stimulus money will provide a way to make up for the loss of local revenues or at least give them a way to bridge their current shortfalls until the economy revives.

As an example of the surge in applicants, Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST), which certifies training academies in the state, reports a record number of enrollees in academies, who hope to find positions as law enforcement officers after they graduate.

Scott Stephenson, POST executive director, worries that some of those enrollees aren't taking the training because of a commitment to law enforcement, but are instead looking for job security and may not have any understanding of the challenges they will face as officers.

Those individuals may be eliminated by attrition, but the turnover isn't likely to be helpful to the agency they've joined. It also can create additional burdens on administrators and supervisors, particularly agency officials who are in charge of hiring officers. And there seems to be no magic formula for determining in advance which new officers will stay and work to make a career and those who may seek other opportunities when the economy rebounds.

Of course, on the plus side, current conditions are making a wider pool of applicants available, including some experienced officers who have been let go because of budget cuts.

Police departments throughout the country are attempting latch onto any additional funding sources to offset budget cuts or to meet increased demands from population growth. And many of those departments report they're seeing an increase in job-seekers.

Sergeant Mark Clark with the Scottsdale, Ariz., Police Department reports that the agency has seen a large increase in applications for jobs as the economic downturn has continued. "In the past, we were happy to see 70 people turn up to test for a dozen positions," he commented. "For our latest testing, we had to limit it to 200," Clark said. "We're getting a lot of applicants, which allows us to be more selective."

The department is maintaining an active list of applicants for any future openings, Clark noted, and hoping that there will be some federal funding for the stimulus to allow the department to fill more positions. The agency has not yet determined how it will spend any of the hoped-for stimulus money. "We're waiting on guidelines from the feds," Clark said. "We have some ideas but we're not ready to go public with them."

Meanwhile, Steve Schuster, assistant chief of police in El Monte, Calif., reports that his department is in the process of submitting a request for stimulus funds, but that "the grant application is still open" and will be submitted later this spring. Schuster said El Monte is hoping for assistance under at least two grant programs.

The department is requesting funding from the federal Office of Community Oriented Policing Services under the COPS program, in pursuit of funding for 10 more officers, Schuster said.

The department also is applying for funding under the Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) program, which provides money based on a community's population and crime rate. El Monte expects to receive $320,000 under that program, Schuster said, and it will seek other competitive grant funds in an attempt to obtain funding for four gang officers and six civilian community service officers.

Due to the recession, the department "just laid off 17 officers," Schuster reported. "Most of them are getting picked up by other agencies-five of them within a week."

During an economic slowdown, Schuster noted that the department, like many other law enforcement agencies, generally sees an increase in applicants, but that the department isn't in a position to add staff without some outside revenue.

Congress and the Obama administration have allocated $2 billion in Justice Assistance Grants that the stimulus package intends to funnel to states and cities for law enforcement programs to fight crime and boost local economies.

President Obama cited Columbus, Ohio, where budget problems earlier this year led to the decision not to swear in two dozen new recruits as officers, after the city had spent $1.4 million in training costs. But Columbus received $1.25 million in Justice Assistant Grant funds-allowing the city to reverse the decision-and in March, the president and Attorney General Eric Holder watched as the recruits were sworn in.

Other departments are hoping they'll be able to come up with similar success stories-and that part of that success will be holding onto dedicated officers for a long time.

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on May 01, 2009 (boomark / email).