SPECIAL REPORT
Syracuse police officers graduate from training.
Shortage of Workers Hurting Police Departments Departments throughout CNY have struggled to hire enough officers and are embracing new strategies as they attempt to recruit By Ken Sturtz
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t. Matthew Malinowski remembers angling for a job with the Syracuse Police Department a little over a decade ago when 800 people took the entrance exam to fill just 30 openings. That wasn’t unusual. The department used to have as many as 2,000 people take the exam. “Back then you had to really fight for the position,” he said. “But now it’s much different.” Police departments throughout Central New York are confronting severe challenges in recruiting as they attempt to replenish their depleted
ranks and are frequently adopting new strategies to attract officers. Because police officers can retire after 20 years, most departments need a steady flow of recruits to maintain staffing levels. It typically takes up to a year for new hires to complete all the required training and be working independently. In Syracuse the flow of recruits has slowed to a trickle. The department had at least 40 openings to fill, but after physical tests, medical exams and background checks it was only able to hire four people for its academy class.
The Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office is dealing with staffing shortages across the entire agency, including the police department and its custody and correction departments, which oversee the county jail, said Sgt. Jon Seeber. “We’re doing more with less at this point,” he said. The sheriff’s office is lacking about 20 deputies on patrol and 30 deputies in custody and correction, Seeber said, and the agency has struggled to maintain minimum staffing levels. In the past 400-500 people might have taken the county’s civil service exam. More recently the number has been closer to 100 for the police exam and just 30 for the last custody and correction exam. After all the tests and a background check, the most recent police academy started with only 20 recruits, Seeber said. And a few people usually quit before completing training. The struggle to recruit police officers is not limited to Central New York. Agencies around the country have faced similar challenges. Even the New York State Police, which has long had a seemingly endless supply of applicants thanks to its statewide reach and high starting salary — $58,443 during academy training, increasing to $82,677 after one year — has felt the strain. “We’re no different than any other police agency in terms of the challeng-
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