The Culver Town Council members reviewed this year’s Salary Ordinance that pertains to the police department.
Culver Town Council President Bill Cleavenger stated there is a near crisis in the Culver Police Department. An adjustment was requested in the Salary Ordinance to assist with recruiting and retaining police officers.
Culver Police Chief Wayne Bean explained to the council that they advertised for open positions in August for five weeks and got seven applicants. The deadline was extended for another five weeks and five more people submitted applications. Bean mentioned that none of the 12 applicants were certified. In the end, one person was chosen to be the best applicant and was given a conditional offer of employment but by the time the entire process had reached that point he accepted an offer with a neighboring department.
Chief Bean noted that a lot of departments in the county are facing the same issue.
Since 2016, Chief Bean said five people have been hired only to lose them to another police department. He wants to do something to keep officers on the department and those issues were discussed at budget time, but it will take time to get to where it needs to be. He stressed that addressing the salary is the first step.
Councilman Rich West commented that it seemed “obvious” that the council needs to make an adjustment to the Salary Ordinance for the current officers and potential applicants. He made a motion to adopt the amendments. The adjustment would be $5.00 an hour increase for all officers.
The council did unanimously approve the Salary Ordinance amendment on the first reading. They did suspend the rules to adopt the ordinance on second reading, but Bill Githens voted against the motion for second and third reading of the ordinance stating that he wanted to see solid numbers within the ordinance. Bill Cleavenger, Sally Ricciardi and Rich West voted in favor of the motion while Bill Hamm voted “present”. Upon clarification on voting rules, even though there was a majority vote, if the rules are suspended and not unanimously agreed upon on the second reading, it will need to be considered for third reading at the council’s next meeting.
