The Jefferson Police Department is making strides to rebuild its numbers.

Currently the department is down four officers, including one officer at the Law Enforcement Academy that will return in less than one month. However, that leaves one open shift, which is being fulfilled by the Greene County Sheriff’s Office through a 28E agreement.

Police Chief Mark Clouse says an issue continues nationwide trying to find individuals wanting to go into law enforcement due to the negative image law enforcement has had over the past few years with some actions by officers in other parts of the country. 

“That’s a lot of the issue we’re fighting right now with retention of our officers here in town is that pool (of applicants) has depleted. We would do a hiring and maybe have 30-35 applicants that we could seriously look through and choose from. We’re more like 3 or 4 now.”

To help gauge progress being made by the department, the newly approved 28E agreement outlines benchmarks. Those include completing job interviews for at least two officer positions by October 30th, extending conditional job offers to two individuals by November 13th, and extending two formal job offers by December 8th. Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn told the Jefferson City Council at their regular meeting last week why the County wanted these benchmarks in place.

“So the County wanted some benchmarks, some conditions, and if they weren’t met, the County wanted the right to terminate the agreement. At which point I believe the Sheriff’s Office plan would be to start hiring deputies and start covering Jefferson.”

Laehn was adamant that the County doesn’t want to take on full coverage of Jefferson. He added if the police department can show good faith towards achieving the benchmarks, then the County would be flexible on that part of the agreement.