DeKalb Police could learn a lesson from John’s Creek on Recruitment & Retention

Having sat through several sessions with DeKalb Police Department’s top brass whereby they touted the benefits of Chief Bolton’s "Road to Success Action Plan" to recruit & retain police officers. I have questioned some of the policies on this blog and made suggestions to both Chief Bolton, Commissioners Rader & Gannon to improve the plan.

The City of John’s Creek just borrowed my suggestion that DeKalb Officers should be paid a residential stipend for living inside the district they are paid to protect. Currently very few DeKalb officers actually live in DeKalb therefore when the Department finally obtains an adequate number of marked police vehicles and implements the take-home car program, DeKalb will not have the same impact from those vehicles as if they were stationed here in DeKalb. I am told the Department is currently in dire need for police vehicles for patrol, with officers waiting at station houses for vehicles to come off shift.

Chief Bolton’s take home plan also has another major flaw, it calls for officers with the highest seniority (Lieutenants and Sergeants) to get the take home vehicles first, but the problem with retention is not at the supervisory level, it is in the uniform ranks. I have been told that the number of uniform officers has gone down significantly while the number of supervisory officers (Sgt's) has dramatically increased. Since it is these uniform officers who answer the calls, they are where the rubber hits the road and they need to be taken care of first. Management is just overhead to support the patrolman’s needs; unfortunately, it appears that the DeKalb PD has this concept completely backward.

John’s Creek understands that retention of every officer in a competitive market is a long-term savings over the additional costs associated with obtaining & hiring new recruits. DeKalb needs to shift gears to start concentrating on adequately equipping the Department with vehicles, offering residency and other retention benefits to new recruits & uniform officers who have a much higher tendency to leave the department. The DeKalb Police Department cannot do business as it always has because the game has changed and the newer and more nimble municipal departments are at a huge advantage. Without quick action to outmaneuver these new departments by offering competitive compensation packages and quality of work life improvements, it is my fear that DeKalb will have a retention problem for many years to come.