The Jefferson Police Department now has a new recruitment tool to attract potential new officers, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

This past Tuesday, the City Council approved a new incentive policy to help hire and retain officers. Police Chief Mark Clouse told the Council last month that there’s a hiring shortage across the state in law enforcement and bigger agencies buying out smaller agency’s contracts and hiring individuals. Currently, the Jefferson Police Department has two openings, with another slated on January 6th.

The new policy includes a student loan incentive where the City pays up to $200 per month, based on a four-year contract, for an officer who has a criminal justice college degree. The incentive can then be eliminated by the city once the four-year contract is fulfilled. There is also a $2,000 hiring bonus that is in addition to the officer’s starting salary. Council member Harry Ahrenholtz serves on the law enforcement committee and he explains one of the reasons the policy was created.

“What we will do along with providing these incentives, we’ll be asking them to sign a contract for four years. If we can’t keep them beyond four years then probably shame on us rather than shame on them. We think this will work, we don’t know it’ll work. But it’s worth a try I think.”

City Administrator Mike Palmer adds that if an officer leaves before their four-year contract is completed, then the officer has to pay back the money from the incentives. Palmer says he could see this type of policy used by other city departments.

“In this tight labor market, and these kind of skilled positions, this is very innovative to come up with something like this. Because this isn’t certainly something to say that some of the other departments could run into the same problem. So this has kind of laid the groundwork (and) they could utilize something like this too.”

Payment for the new incentive policy will come from the city’s general fund.