In less than one week, the Jefferson Police Department will be down three of its officers.

One officer has resigned and the department’s newest officer, Mark Wolterman is at the eight-week Iowa Law Enforcement Academy to become a fully certified officer. Then starting August 25th, an 11-year veteran, Captain Heath Enns, will become a Greene County Sheriff’s Deputy. Jefferson Mayor Matt Gordon appreciates Enns’ service and says he will be missed as a city employee.

Gordon says the police department turnover has been an ongoing issue for four years.

“We’ve haven’t found the fix yet. We’ve tried an incentive program here a couple of years back. I did bring the wage gap to light back in February (with other police departments), (but) there’s been little to no talk of anything since that time at least on the (City) Council level.”

Gordon points out hiring officers is getting tougher following the shooting death of Michael Brown by an officer in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 and the death of George Floyd from a former police officer in Minneapolis this spring. He says when the Greene County Board of Supervisors heard about Captain Enns applying for another position in another county, they created an additional deputy position to keep Enns in the community.

“We have to adapt that attitude. We need to work hard at finding how we fix this. It’s really on the Council level (and) it’s in their hands. They have the power to make change, I have a voice but I don’t have a vote. So it’s really in the Council’s hands on where do we go from here and how do we fix this situation?”

Earlier this year, Gordon pointed out a 180-percent turnover rate was in the police department. The Council previously discussed the issue at a regular meeting in February and the main issue was creating a wage discrepancy with other city departments and possibly bringing in a third-party consultant to analyze the wage gap situation.