What does it take to get—and keep—good cops?
That’s a question members of Schoharie County’s Citizens Collaborative Committee asked Undersheriff Bruce Baker Monday.
The Sheriff’s Office is “absolutely struggling,” Undersheriff Baker said—but it’s no different from law enforcement agencies everywhere.
The issue is the money—a little—and criticism police are facing after incidents like the George Floyd murder—also a little—but “I don’t know if we’ve uncovered it,” he said.
“Some of it is that this is a generation on instant gratification: ‘It’s on my phone.’ The desire to do the job isn’t there,” especially when beginning police officers need to spend three months in the academy and six months training on the road, and then invest four years in the job before they can test to move up to sergeant—where some of them think they should be starting.
“I was a 30-year-old when I took the job,” Undersheriff Baker said. “I wanted it. I’ve legitimately had some candidates say they don’t want to work nights and weekends.”
Add to that the typical salary—maybe $43,000 a year when warehouse jobs with overtime pay $60,000—and “the way law enforcement is portrayed…”
Better recruitment efforts would help, Undersheriff Baker said, but even that is made difficult by the fact that the required Civil Service test for deputies is offered just once a year and without not much advance notice; they’re expecting a test in September with flyers out in mid-July.
“We don’t really have a recruitment division. That takes people,” he said, a Catch 22 situation.
Then there’s the job itself.
The volume of calls is up and they’re more dangerous calls, Undersheriff Baker said, with more domestics and more guns.
“Every call we go to has guns because we bring them. It’s no less dangerous here than Amsterdam or Buffalo,” he said. “It just looks different. Every home we go into has firepower.
“We’re fortunate because we have community support. But it’s tough to leverage that for recruitment.”
It may take glitz and even a little glamour to remedy all that.
The Sheriff’s Office is working on a phone app, and hoping its soon-to-be-launched drone program will draw more attention to the opportunities.
Something else that could help is getting the state to allow “pass-fail” grades on Civil Service tests instead of requiring departments to take the top three scorers before considering anyone else.
“Give me everybody on the list. Let us find the best fit for the community,” Undersheriff Baker said. “I want that #4. I don’t want that #1 because that #4 is going to succeed. Some of your best officers are the ones who scores in the 80s and 90s because of where they come from in life.”
Undersheriff Baker said they’re hoping to have a presence at the Fair; a recruitment billboard or bus wraps were also floated as ideas.
The problem exists across departments—he’s been talking with Cobleskill Police Chief Justin Manchester on ways they can work together.
It also exists across the Sheriff’s Offices divisions including the jail, and communications.
“We have to formulate a strategy,” he said. “That takes time and it takes money.”