Posted on 12/25/2007 4:54:30 PM PST by Jet Jaguar
Albuquerque Police Department recruiters are getting creative since learning they won't meet their goal of 1,100 officers on the force by the end of this year.
With hope of making that mark in mid-2008, Deputy Chief Mike Castro said recruiters will be hosting a women's health challenge, passing out recruitment fliers while running an Arizona marathon and mining other cities for recruits.
But all of this won't add up to much if the department and the officers' union can't reach an agreement on higher salaries, said union Vice President Ben Baker.
"Our recruiting effort is hindered in that we have the eighth- or ninth-worst pay package in the state," Baker said. "But I'm optimistic."
Castro is, too.
Both think that with a higher salary, more than $19 an hour, and with the continued creative efforts, the department will reach 1,100 officers in about six months.
As of early December, the department had 989 sworn officers, Castro said.
"We were up over 1,020 in September," Castro said.
With the 126 people hired or in training, there would have been no problem meeting the 1,100 goal.
But too many officers retired this year, Castro said.
"For my career, the highest number (of retirements) was last year, 60," Castro said. "This year, 53 as of Monday (Dec. 17). We didn't expect that early on in the year, but there is no way to accurately predict that."
(Excerpt) Read more at abqtrib.com ...
i’ve heard that parts of albuqurque are beautiful. sadly, i haven’t seen them. and i’ve been there several times. :)
:0)
I grew up there. We keep the nice areas secret.
Bush’s fault.
He broke the police force.
Morale is low.
Recruitment is off.
/s
The last thing Albuquerque needs is more cops.
LOL!!!
Does Bill Richardson feel their pain?
Thia is a local issue.
It is. It is also a notice across the Conservative board that there are some folks hiring in Albuquerque. (Not just the APD)
Gonna get worse. AZ’s new laws re illegals go into effect in Jan. The newz last night said there were approx. 250,00 illegals in AZ and only about 75,000 in NM. NM is illegal friendly, but there isn’t much in the way of work for them...housing has slowed way down and the native NMicans have a lock on the drunk driving market.
Back in 1975, the Albuquerque police went on strike.
The crime rate went DOWN.
Citizens responded to the strike by patrolling their neighborhoods with their shotguns and such, and I would guess it was understood by the criminals that there would be no prisoners taken. The strike collapsed in a little while
Thank you for recalling that.
“native NMicans have a lock on the drunk driving market.”
Really? It used to be the NM House members were the 3 and 5 time offenders.
Doll..........
bump to that!
Define "drunk".
Stabing those 2 border patrol guys in the back isn’t helping much, I guess.
This would make a great thread. Any way to get the story for free?
Give the police work to the illegals. It’s work Americans won’t do, right?
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