Motivation

 Recently, we were mandated to go to the State of the City speech.  While overtime is always good, I was also looking forward to going to the meeting to find out what is happening and what is planned for not only the police department but the other divisions of our city.  Typically, the different divisions are little black boxes for us as well as we are for them.  When we arrived at the first session, it was 90 percent police officers and just a smattering of other city employees.  We found out at that time we were the only division that was mandated to attend, which was not a problem for me since I probably would have participated in the meeting on my own time to learn what the proposed future of the police department was by the senior city official.  After a 45-minute PowerPoint presentation, we all left without gaining any new information about our division.  There was not one slide about the police department, and every other division had a section in the presentation.  We all left without clapping or questions, with the consolation of three hours of overtime. The second group to go did ask two questions, which were basically about manpower and facilities.  The answers that were provided only concerned the fire department, even though it was a police based question.

Our takeaway from this meeting was threefold.  The first was that there is no plan or future for the police department other than maintaining the status quo (Thank goodness we are a well-functioning department, or that understanding could be devastating for a police employee in a garbage department).  Second, if the fire department receives something, it means that we cannot upgrade, improve, or address concerns until the fire project is completed, and oh, they are ahead of us in line at all times.  The third is that we are not a current priority (Ie, every other division is ahead of us, not just fire).  Needless to say, morale and positive motivation took a hit.  I highly doubt there is zero consideration for us, and maybe, in a backhanded way, it is a compliment since the city does not think we need anything we already don't have, but that is a weak consultation.  

The bottom line was that the meeting had the opposite effect on the police department than what it was intended for. Looking up and seeing a mass of uniforms sitting in the back should have inspired some off-the-cuff remarks about our future, but it clearly did not elicit that response. What a missed opportunity.

Institutional Knowledge and Retention

 When I first came on the job in 1997, the typical retirement occurred at 30 years of service, and it was a full retirement (Ie, no more work, just hobbies).  Recently, however, we have seen early retirements in which the officer then goes and works another full-time job (Which they consistently report back to us is much better than the job they just vacated).  Beginning in 2020: 2 left at 27 years, 1 left at 26 years, 2 left at 24 years, and finally 2 left at 21 years.  In the same period, only 4 retired with more than 30 years on, and 2 left due to improper actions that occurred off-duty.  All of these officers who left early left for other public law enforcement positions outside of our city, so burnout does not account for this trend.  The other six did not go into sworn law enforcement positions (Obviously, 2 of these really did not have that as an option).

My department and I believe the city as a whole has no thought of incentivizing retention and stemming the loss of institutional knowledge.  If everyone stayed until they had accomplished 30 years of service, the department would have retained/gained 50 years of experience and expertise.  A recent positive development is that we have, finally, been allowing lateral hiring of officers from other departments, and they have been universally successful.  In this period, we have only had two entry officers replace these departing officers; the rest of the open positions were filled by laterals.   This has stemmed the receding knowledge tide to some degree.

What I wonder and have suggested is whether having a retention police would benefit the department and the city.  A simple calculation of the cost of training and equipping new employees and creating an incentive that is less than that amount would probably have retained all 8 of our "leave early" officers.  It needs to be noted that all of these officers left for second pensions, so they definitely can be motivated by money and benefits.  I took a quick poll of our day shifters, who all have timelines to leave before 30, and asked what it would take to stay another five years.  The final answer was 30 grand.  Since it costs more than $130,000 to get even a lateral up and running, I think that would be a great deal for the department and the city.  Hopefully, one that they will take advantage of one day, and maybe before I also retire.

17