By Martin B. Cassidy
Staff Writer
March 11, 2008
After facing a staffing crunch and shortage of qualified applicants two years ago, the Greenwich Police Department has netted dozens of eligible candidates for police officer with new recruitment efforts.
A total of 62 people passed written and oral employment exams in recent months and are on a waiting list for openings at the department, according to human resource officials.
This week, police Chief David Ridberg and police will interview 16 candidates for five vacant police officer spots, Ridberg said.
"The numbers are still not huge, but it's a big difference," Ridberg said. "We've recovered quite nicely from where we were two years ago."
Ridberg credited increased recruitment efforts by the department, including visits to college and military job fairs, for spurring interest in the entry-level police officer position.
"We took a more aggressive hand in our recruiting É and it seems to have worked," Ridberg said.
The department received 284 applications from October to December 2007, versus 105 during a fall 2006 recruiting drive. Retirements and attrition caused a staffing crunch by the end of 2006, with 11 officers leaving the department in a short period of time and the town's list of eligible candidates exhausted.
The department's ranks fell to 143 officers, 13 below the recommended number of 156, officials said.
The number of candidates seeking to become police officers has dropped significantly in recent years, Ridberg said, because of increased competition from other police departments, which have raised salary and benefits for new officers.
Of the 284 applicants for the job this winter, about half passed the physical fitness test to qualify to take the written exam, Mary Jo Iannuccilli, assistant director of human resources for the town said.
"I think we did pretty well over all with the number of candidates who qualified for the written exam," Iannuccilli said. "We had a nice pool of candidates from which to choose."
Once offered the job, the candidates must also pass a psychological evaluation, a polygraph test, and pre-employment physical, Ridberg said.
The starting salary for a Greenwich police officer is $51,837. Officers earn $65,163 after five years.
At the Norwalk Police Department, administrators also face a challenge balancing being selective in hiring candidates and preventing the qualified applicants from going elsewhere, Chief Harry Rilling said.
Of the 528 candidates who applied for the job last year, only 119 passed both the written and physical fitness tests. About a dozen of them were hired.
To become more competitive, the Norwalk department is planning to hold an employment exam every few months to try to cut the lag between evaluating candidates and offering them jobs.
"With the economy changing the way it is we may start to see things improving," Rilling said. "However, we have to be cautious that we don't lower our standards and accept people who might not fit with the profession."
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