Montgomery County officials are trying a multitude of ways to hire more new police officers to a force that has lost 194 officers in the past five years.
The county actively is recruiting retired police officers to serve in a variety of civilian officer rolls, thereby freeing up younger officers, explained Montgomery County Chief Administrative Office Rich Madaleno Wednesday.
The consulting firm, Epic Recruiting, was retained to help find new recruits, and the county is working with state legislators to relax a law that requires a person wishing to be a police officer to have not used marijuana in the past three years “even though it is legal in the state of Maryland,” Madaleno said.
That law reduces the number of applicants, he noted.
“My goal right now, quite simply, is to hire as many recruits as possible, ” said Police Captain Michael Pratt, director of the police’s personnel division.
The police advertise on radio, television and social media. Also, a staff of four sworn officers spend their working hours on recruitment, visiting colleges, community events and other places to talk up the benefits of working for the police department.
Another 160 county officers are trained in recruiting and speak about it when they are in the community, Pratt said.
The county continues to offer a $20,000 signing hiring bonus.
A police cadet program mentors potential hirees while they are still in college, paying them for up to 20 hours of work each week. There are slots for 25 people in this program, and 18 are filled.
Pre-hires also can take physical fitness and mental health classes in person or on Zoom.
“We as a department and a county are just always trying to find new and innovative ways,” Pratt said.
The police are using three mobile crisis outreach teams to handle calls where law enforcement officers are not necessarily needed.
These teams consist of two people, a licensed clinician and a behavioral health technician who are peer support specialists. Currently, the county has three teams but is looking to add at least two more.
Beth Tabachnick, manager of the mobile crisis outreach program, noted, “We want to reduce the overuse of police officers,” especially in times when they are not needed or when they might increase tensions.
About 35% of the times a team goes on a call, no law enforcement officers accompany it, she said.
Teams handled almost 2,100 calls during Fiscal Year 2023. Tabachnick expects that number will increase greatly this year as new teams are added.
Most of the calls come from shelters, schools, law enforcement, family members and loved ones, she said, adding that several team members are bilingual.
The county also has a welcome back center that assists people from other countries or states return to the jobs they were trained in but currently cannot practice in Maryland. Besides helping them obtain the proper accreditation, the participants also can work on their English skills, Madaleno said.
Anyone interested in working for Montgomery County should go to Work4MCG.com to see a list of job openings. The county expects to have a new recruitment page in the next months that will be simpler to use, Madaleno said.
“We are working hard to solve our problems and our needs in a variety of ways,” he noted.
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