GASTONIA, N.C. — With less than a month on the job, new Gastonia Police Chief Trent Conard has his hands full as he tries to recruit more officers to the force.
This is something he acknowledged Tuesday night as he presented some incentives to Gastonia city leaders that he says will help retain and recruit officers.
“Law enforcement is faced with a difficult time in history,” Conard said. “Having adequate staffing has become an issue.”
Gastonia’s police department faces the same challenges that other law enforcement departments do – trying to get officers when it’s even harder to recruit.
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According to the 2021 International Association of Chiefs of Police Survey on police retention and recruitment:
- 78% of agencies reported having difficulty recruiting qualified candidates
- 65% of agencies reported having too few candidates applying to be law enforcement officers
- 75% of agencies reported that recruiting was more difficult in 2019 than it was in 2014.
Currently, the department has 19 vacancies and has not been fully staffed since before the pandemic. Conard asked for help and city leaders agreed to several changes to help incentivize people to join including.
- Intermediate and advanced pay increase up to 5%, adding corporals and lieutenants to its ranks—will give people more opportunity to move up
- Double the lateral transfer bonus to $6k (would require 3 yr. commitment)
- Increase salary for all bilingual staff members.
- Increase shift differential pay by 5% to add more senior staff to overnight shifts.
Conard hopes these moves will help fill those vacancies and keep officers already with GPD on the force.
“We want to be more attractive to recruits, especially laterals. And retain officers the retention is a big part of it," he said.
These incentives come with a total price tag of $600,000 to the city.
Contact Richard DeVayne at rdevayne@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
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