The Jefferson Police Department is continuing to struggle to keep officers in its ranks.

Mayor Matt Gordon tells Raccoon Valley Radio the police department feels like they aren’t being supported by City officials and the council. Gordon says one reason why the department felt this way was from a failed proposal he made at a council meeting back in February to increase wages for officers.

“(I) had brought up a pay increase of $10,000 that was going to be scheduled to pay right along with the (Greene County) sheriff’s department. Because every time a January or a July (every six month) goes by, the sheriff’s department just continues to go up on us (for wages), and right now I believe they are $7,000 more for their starting than our starting (wage). Well I wanted to keep pace with them so by July of 2021 we would be right next to them in pay.”

Gordon points out the Council approved a retention program 2½ years ago, which included partial repayment for school loans if an officer had a criminal justice degree, as well as a sign on bonus. However, Gordon says that turned out not to be the answer. He believes the hiring pool for law enforcement is extremely tough due to national civil unrest against law enforcement and with the police department working alongside the sheriff’s office under the same roof. He explains how dire the situation is.

“I’ll just put a scenario out there, say we lost our sergeant. We’ve lost all of our command staff except for (Police Chief) Mark Clouse. Now he’s going to be doing three people’s jobs. It’s going to be bad if we lose any more officers. But until we as a City start taking some action, it’s tough to say (but) doing nothing this problem will not go away.”

Council member Pat Zmolek is on the police department committee, along with Gordon and Clouse, and he says they are considering all options.

“The things that we are working on now are basically structure for our PD going forward in the future to protect the citizens of Jefferson. We’ve talked about different ways to staff the department, having different types of officers, do we put an administrative person in there? So we’re kind of looking at all options and I think every option is on the table at this point.”

Zmolek encourages residents to reach out to him with ideas or suggestions of how the department can function.