Council catches flack on cop shortage issue

Peachtree City will add three new firefighters to its staff April 1, bringing the total number of personnel on duty each shift to 15.

While that helps solve one public safety personnel problem, a citizen addressed the City Council last week on another: the difficulty in hiring college graduates to come work for the city’s police department.

As reported in The Citizen two weeks ago, Police Chief James Murray told Council at its retreat that well-qualified applicants are becoming hard to recruit because other agencies pay more. Such new officers in Peachtree City start out at $34,000 a year, but other police agencies are offering $41,000 a year and thus they’re getting the best recruits, Murray told Council.

Resident Linda Wojcik suggested that the city raise the pay of all police by $6,000 a year to help attract qualified applicants and keep good cops here. Doing so would cost $400,000 a year, which is far cheaper than the recently proposed $2 million expansion of the city’s senior citizen center, Wojcik noted.

“I think we need to show them our appreciation,” Wojcik said, noting that the best way to do that would be adding money to their paychecks.

She also argued that the city needs to keep its informal policy of recruiting only college graduates. Wojcik said the city didn’t need to “dumb down” the force by hiring less qualified applicants.

In the past six months Peachtree City has lost three of its lieutenants and is currently short eight officers, although a new hire is due to start in April and a re-hired officer starts this month. Two more rookies may start training in July, Murray has said.

Murray also is aware of several current officers who plan to leave in the near future, which may put the department back in the position it’s in now, he said Tuesday. Last year the City Council authorized three additional officer positions in the budget starting in January of this year.

The boost to the fire department still leaves the city short of having enough personnel to have two persons for each vehicle, but it gets the city closer to that goal. It also gets the city closer to meeting the minimum national staffing standards for cities of comparable size.

The $115,000 cost for the three new positions, including uniforms, supplies and equipment, is already built into the city’s budget. Initially the city had set aside $120,000 to pay matching grants for firefighter salaries. That grant, issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ultimately was not awarded to the city, though it may re-apply for the program in the future.

The City Council unanimously approved the personnel additions at Thursday night’s meeting.

The fire department covers four stations throughout the city and all personnel are certified in firefighting in addition to being either a certified emergency medical technician or a certified paramedic. Those certifications are required because the department also operates the city’s ambulance service.

The new firefighters will be assigned to Station 83 in Braelinn, allowing two firefighters to be placed on an engine and the other two on an ambulance, according to a fire department memo.

Earlier at the same meeting, a citizen suggested how council should address ongoing vacancies at the Peachtree City Police Department.

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