THE HIRING PLAN

By Ashley Luthern

aluthern@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

The township police department is on track with its promised hirings, five months after voters approved a 3.85-mill, five-year additional police levy.

The department now has 50 sworn police officers, including the chief. Two were sworn in after the levy’s approval and a third, who has accepted a conditional officer of employment, is expected to be sworn at the next trustee meeting and will bring that number to 51.

The levy will generate about $3.8 million annually designated for the police department and the township will begin receiving that new money this April. The police department’s budget is expected to be more than $8 million for 2012, up from the $7.1 million it was allotted in 2011.

Limiting overtime and expenditures in the police department during 2011 allowed the township to begin hiring additional officers soon after the levy was approved, said Trustee Chairman Brad Calhoun, who commended Police Chief Jack Nichols for budget management.

In a timeline covering 2011 to 2013 released by the township in late August, two new officers were expected to start in October, which they did, and a third in January, which has been pushed back slightly for the new hire to complete the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy. A police officer starting salary is about $33,000 annually.

When new officers start, they will spend about 14 weeks in the department’s training program, Nichols said.

The Civil Service Board is currently working on scheduling the next civil-service test, likely to be in March, and then the township expects to hire four additional officers between May and June using the new civil- service list, Calhoun said.

“This board is determined to fulfill the promise of 10 officers in addition to the support staff. Our No. 1 priority is 10 officers on the streets,” Calhoun said.

As hiring of officers continues on schedule, the process of hiring dispatchers has been bumped up from September 2012 to now as the police department focuses on its collaboration with Austintown police and shares the cost of a $1.5 million Motorola radio system.

Each township will have three radio-dispatch consoles and one backup, instead of the two consoles and one backup that they have now, and will meet a federal mandate that all public-safety land-mobile-radio systems switch from analog to digital by 2013, said township Administrator Jason Loree.

“We want to make sure we have adequate staffing,” said Loree, who called the radio project a “major accomplishment” for both townships.

Nichols said the department is planning to promote a part-time dispatcher to full-time and then hire another full-time dispatcher and at least one, possibly two, part-time dispatchers. Applications are at the police department, 8299 Market St.

Entry level salaries are $10.50 per hour for a part-time dispatcher and $11.23 per hour, or about $23,000 annually, for full-time dispatchers.

“The part-time [employees], there’s no benefits, which saves on costs. It keeps our levy dollars more flexible and keeps the levy stretching longer,” Loree said. “The stuff we’re doing is not rocket science. We’re doing what we need to do.”

The police department timeline will be included in a comprehensive five-year township plan. Once the financial portion of the plan is complete, which is expected in February, trustees will release the final version and “hope to have community input along the way,” Calhoun said.