… Program To Address Recruitment, Retention

time swallowing this,” she said, adding that she did support enrollment in LEOPS. Knerr said his proposal was just a concept and could be adjusted.

“It’s not carved in stone,” he said. Green said he was a bit uncomfortable entering into LEOPS without funding identified.

Finance Director Natalie Saleh confirmed that the town had enough leftover casino revenue to fund the LEOPS stabilization and that casino revenues, preferably a portion of them, could be used for LEOPS going forward. Though there is a question of whether the Local Development Council, which approves the use of casino revenues, would approve of the LEOPS expenditure, the town’s attorney said the body was advisory and could not dictate how the town spent its money. Orris pointed out that the funding already earmarked for capital projects could be the backup funding plan for LEOPS.

When the council reconvened in open session immediately following Monday’s work session, Burrell said he was honored to make the motion to enter into LEOPS. The council’s unanimous support of that motion earned applause from the audience, which consisted of all of the town’s current police officers.

In an interview Tuesday, Downing said that in his three decades working in Berlin, he’d worked with 62 officers. While some left law enforcement altogether, 10 are still on staff. Twenty-five, however, left Berlin to join other agencies, primarily the Worcester County Sheriff’s Office. Downing said that under the current retirement system, officers had to work a minimum of 30 years before they could consider retiring. They also have to be a certain age.

With LEOPS, officers will be able to retire after 25 years of service and will get better benefits than those who have worked 30 years under the current system.

“All of the surrounding agencies except Snow Hill have LEOPS or something better,” Downing said.

As a result, Berlin has lost officers, even those who had multi-year contracts in place, to other agencies.

“LEOPS attracts people who have experience and it’s easier to retain people,” he said.

Downing says law enforcement agencies should have a regular flow of officers working up through the ranks, not bottlenecks of older officers who can’t consider retirement until they’d been in place at least 30 years.

“For us as a town, we end up with older officers and have higher workman’s comp and insurance costs,” he said.

Downing is confident moving to LEOPS will enable the town to attract and retain quality officers into the future. He’s more excited about this than the Berlin Police Department’s new station or technology, because this takes care of the officers themselves. He’s grateful for the community, and subsequently council, support that made LEOPS possible for officers in Berlin.

“This is the highlight of my career,” he said. “It’s something I’ve been working toward for over 15 years.”

Where to Next With Oasis?