Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell today unveiled his long-awaited police recruitment and retention strategy.
“Financial incentives are critical” Harrell told reporters the city is going to be competitive, “that’s why this plan offers incentives of up to $30,000 for lateral transfers and $7,500 for new recruits.”
The Seattle Police Department has lost more than 400 officers since 2019 and today the department is short staffed by more than 370 cops. “Our staffing levels currently don’t allow us to ensure the high level of public safety the people of this city deserve” Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz told a morning news conference.
There’s a nationwide shortage of police officers, and the competition for them is fierce. Mayor Harrell says he made frequent trips to the police department to sit in on roll-call to talk to officers, “I look at the officers and I look in their eyes and I say ‘#1 I respect what you do you’re trying to protect and serve. I’m trying to find you bench strength’ and I’m trying to change the narrative to unify this city.”
The $2M plan includes hiring more recruiters, doing more advertising, and streamlining a complex application and hiring process.
But retaining officers already on the Seattle Police force didn’t come up until a reporter put the mayor on the spot, “retention issues and the monetary issues, we are in SPOG (Seattle Police Officers Guild) negotiations as we speak so it’s ill advised to start talking about some of the specific dollar amounts with respect to retention.”
The plan has been met with cautious optimism, “We’ve lost so many people, 500 and counting that we’ll take a qualified human to do the job of policing,” but Mike Solan, President of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, says keeping experienced cops should be a top priority “the retention piece needs to be negotiated, but I think that piece alone is what’s most important to retain our current people.”
The mayor’s plan now heads to the Seattle City Council.
