After several years of being more or less shorthanded from an officer perspective, the Perry Police Department is now up to what they consider a full force.

Police Chief Eric Vaughn says the City hired three new officers at the end of September, which brings the department up to 13. Two are replacements for officers that recently left Perry, and the third is a new position budgeted for this year. Brandon Biere is a certified officer coming over from the Public Safety Department at the University of Northern Iowa, and he’ll be doing field training in the coming months before being on his own. The other two officers are not certified, so they’ll need to attend the Law Enforcement Academy before they’re officially part of the force.

Nathan Heath is originally from Adel and was most recently employed at the correctional facility in Fort Dodge. Micaela Zagar is a Perry native returning home after serving in the U.S. Navy. Vaughn is confident all three officers will be assets to the department and City, and he’s excited to soon have a full police force. “It feels pretty good. It’ll feel really good hopefully about April or May, once we get everybody certified and out on their own. It’ll be really nice to have. And we’ll get to be a little more proactive and do some things that we haven’t had a chance to do here in the past year or so.”

Vaughn adds, it’s nice that each of the three new officers have some local ties. He believes that will help them acclimatize to the job and become trusted in the community faster, as well as increase the likelihood that they’ll stay with the department longer.