The Emporia Police Department is feeling the same budget crunch as other departments across the state, and it has been compounded by the loss this year of three experienced officers and two dispatchers.
Two of the police officers retired and went to other jobs, and one accepted a job with the Lawrence Police Department.
With combined experience of about 50 years, those officers will not be easy to replace — and because of budget constraints, the department will only be able to replace two of the three officers lost.
Trimming down law enforcement has been common for most Kansas police departments, with the exception of places like Lawrence and Johnson County, said Police Chief Mike Heffron, whose department was authorized for 49 officers in 2001.
“Now I’m authorized at 47; I have 45,” he said.
None of the applicants currently undergoing the testing and background checks have any police experience, Heffron said. Most of the initial pool of applicants have been eliminated, either through the written or physical testing or the interview process.
“If we have 30 applicants, 20 will show up, 10 will make it past the interview,” Heffron said. “We’ll lose half of them in polygraph and half in background.”
“People would be shocked” at what is revealed on some of the polygraphs, he said. Two barriers seem to rise there with surprising frequency, and either of them will eliminate any possibility of a job with most law-enforcement agencies.
“If you have sold drugs, you will not work in the Emporia Police Department,” Heffron said. “If you have had sex with an animal, you will not work at the Emporia Police Department.”
Some smaller departments already have eliminated polygraphs from their screening process because of the cost.
If Heffron decides to hire two officers from the remaining pool of applicants, they will spend 14 weeks of training at the Kansas Law Enforcement Training Center at Hutchinson and approximately 14 more weeks with experienced training officers before they are allowed to patrol the streets alone.
Costs for that training, including the training officer’s time, equipment and other expenses, is about $45,550 per officer for the first year. The first-year costs for training a dispatcher is $32,550, the chief said.
Specialized training is a necessity that adds to the cost of operating the department; it becomes a major loss when that officer leaves. The officer who joined the Lawrence PD, for example, was certified in accident reconstruction.
“He started off (in Lawrence) at more than he was making here,” Heffron said. “We can’t compete with that.”
And retirements are unavoidable.
“In the next five years, there’s probably going to be six or eight people retire,” said Heffron, who is retiring himself Dec. 16.
“I’m more worried about the fact we’re not competing. We can’t attract” skilled applicants, he said.
Heffron is concerned that having fewer officers will add to the already-rising crime rates in Emporia.
“Crime was up overall 4.44 percent,” he said, going over statistics for the first half of 2006. “Rapes were down, but robberies were up 25 percent; aggravated assaults, 45.5 percent; thefts up 16 percent; auto thefts were up 100 percent; vandalism up 12.5 percent. Sex offenses other than rape are up 191 percent.
“During the first part of the year, forgery and counterfeiting were down 74 percent. But we really got hit the second half. It just takes a few people to impact that” category, he said.
Burglaries were down 21 percent during the first half of the year.
“Most everything else that’s not affected by officer activity like narcotics and gambling ... we don’t have control over, other than being out there and being seen,” he said.