Police officers are usually the people who respond to possibly your worst day.
“They go out and serve the citizens and visitors of the city of Pittsburgh,” said Captain Anthony Palermo of the Pittsburgh Police Department.
But recently it has become more difficult to recruit and retain officers. The city’s current staffing level is 765 officers with 850 budgeted positions.
“We were Pittsburgh, people came to us. Now the competition is a little stiffer, so we have to go out and sell ourselves. We are not the only people in this boat,” Palermo said.
So now the city is stepping up its tactics. Over the past year, grant funding has provided one full-time recruitment officer and fifteen part-time staff. Now the City Council has given its first approval to bring in an Arizona-based company, Performance Protocol, to help improve the process.
“The fact that their specialty was public safety. Their willingness to come and monitor and evaluate not only the agency’s process, but also how human resources and the civil service conduct their hiring processes,” Palermo said.
Retention is also a factor in staffing. The city has changed pathways within the department to help officers move from patrol to specialty. But City Councilman Anthony Coghill believes there should be more because many of the officers who don’t retire are leaving for other departments in our region.
“I would like to see a commitment from new recruits to stay with the Pittsburgh Police Department for at least five years, and I would like to see if a municipality that wants to hire our police officers has to reimburse us for the training and resources we have in that officer stopped,” Coghill said.
As Coghill looks for legislation to bring about such change, he, along with the police department’s leadership, hopes this new company can make some progress in the coming year.
“Any advantage we can give ourselves to sell the opportunities we have here in Pittsburgh is an advantage for us,” Palermo said.
The City Council will have to give a final vote on the contract on Tuesday. If that happens, we hope to get the company to start the process as soon as possible.
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