BOARDMAN — Retire-rehire programs are often the brunt of public criticism, but Boardman police are making just such a program work to everyone’s benefit, they say.

At Monday’s regular trustees meeting, Boardman police Chief Todd Werth won the board’s approval to accept Det. Richard Romeo into the department’s program that will see him retire in three to four years and earn a reduced wage in the interim.

Fiscal Officer Brad Calhoun, a former trustee, said the program that began four years ago allows officers with 25 years of service to cash out their retirement then be rehired by the department at a reduced salary with reduced township contribution to their benefits thereafter. The township only pays out accrued vacation and sick time once, and those balances cannot be cashed out when the officer exits the program after three or four years.

“It’s been very difficult for communities to find officers, and the numbers have dwindled. So this was an attempt to keep some of our veteran officers a little longer, to maintain that experience because that is not something you can replace with a new hire,” Calhoun said.

He said those who enroll, once they are rehired, receive 18% less pay, and while the department’s collective bargaining agreement with the FOP requires that the township still pay into OPERS, that amount is reduced by 12%.

The program works on a scale based on experience. Depending on an officer’s rank, the township will save anywhere from $28,000 per year for a patrolman or detective to $37,000 per year for a captain. Werth said a lieutenant would yield a savings of roughly $32,000 while a sergeant would yield a savings of about $28,000.

Werth said Romeo is the eighth officer to enroll in the program. Right now, Boardman has a captain, a lieutenant, two sergeants and a couple patrol

officers in the program. Based on the savings scale Werth and Calhoun provided and those officers’ time in the program — between one year and four years — Boardman has saved $538,500 over the past four years.

“This is a mechanism to maintain good employees who have a lot of knowledge and dedication and it gives us an ability to stabilize our manpower and it lets us project ahead when people are leaving,” Werth said.

The chief said he understands that many object to such programs and he also was not a fan of the idea when he first began researching it five years ago. However, he learned that other agencies in the area, including the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office, have similar programs that work as intended.

“Very, very few things are beneficial to the taxpayer, the organization and the employee who has dedicated their life going into harm’s way, so it’s a no-brainer,” Werth said.

Calhoun said the officers are automatically approved for three years in the program and can request a fourth, subject to board approval.

In addition to the more than half a million saved already, Romeo’s enrollment will save them another $84,000 to $112,000, depending on how long he stays.

RECRUITING AND RETENTION WOES

Werth and Calhoun said that one of the biggest benefits is allowing the department to forecast its personnel needs more easily. Werth said he knows that in the fall he’ll be down another lieutenant, two sergeants and a patrol officer. Their enrollment in the program also gave the department the ability to plan financially for their retirements, which carry a heavy upfront cost in the form of severance payouts.

Werth said the department, which is approved for 63 officers — and 84 total employees — is down to 59 right now and will lose another four in the fall.

Losing any officers, let alone experienced ones, places a burden on any department.

“We lost a couple to state agencies, just because they pay a little better, and we lost a couple to Florida,” Werth said. “And that can start to take a toll, when you go down four or five or six officers. Now it affects our ability to give time off, and that can lead to burnout, and you have morale issues.”

And, counterintuitively, it also comes with a financial burden.

“You see your staffing dip down, and it’s not a savings because you just end up paying more in overtime, and that’s another story by itself,” Werth said.

Werth hasn’t lost his morale or his focus, though.

“”We’re not going to hire just to fill spots, we’re going to hire good people,” he said. “We have A couple getting ready to finish training, and a couple getting ready to start. But we can only put so many into training at one time.”

And hiring is not as easy as it used to be. Both Werth and Calhoun both point to the difficulty departments have in recruitment.

“I’d say 20 years ago we might have had 100 people taking the test, and today it might be 10 or 15 people,” Calhoun said.

Werth said that whereas the hiring cycle used to be every two or three years, now it is constant.

“I can assure you, we keep hiring,” he said. “This program, it’s not prohibiting us from hiring new people. We’re just constantly cycling through now.”

Werth said it is a full-time job just to identify, recruit and retain good officers.

“We’ve gotten some recruiting grants, and we continue to look at good candidates in the police academies, we’ve even put some through at our expense, and we’ve hired some while they’re still in the academy, just to lock them down,” he said.

He said local departments also converse openly, and when one department takes another’s officer there usually are no hard feelings. Oftentimes, he said, it’s all about what is a better fit for the officer or department.

Boardman recently hired Patrick Flara from Austintown, who has two years of experience on the job, and a name to live up to.

“His dad worked at our police department for 25 years,” Werth said.

While he’s only been policing for two years, Werth said he has no concerns about Flara’s ability to make the transition.

“He’s using the same systems. and Austintown and Boardman are very similar departments,” he said.

And although recruiting is a challenge for departments like his, Werth said there has never been a better time to become a police officer.

“One of the great things about law enforcement now is that for a young officer out of the academy, you’re not competing for jobs, agencies are competing for you.” he said. “These kids at the academy, some of them already have three or four job offers.”