Shortage of police officers costs over $1 million a year

LIHU’E – It costs the Kauai Police Department $7,000 a month in pay, benefits and retirement contributions for one senior officer working overtime to cover a vacancy.

Multiply that monthly charge times 12 months, and it’s $84,000. Multiply that $84,000 times current vacancies, 21, and you get $1,764,000.

That is potentially the additional financial cost, per year, of policing the island with an actual workforce of 128 men and women in blue, compared to an authorized force of 149 warm bodies.

There are five officers in training at the KPD academy at Kauai Community College, and a sergeant about to retire. It costs around $70,000 to train a police recruit on Kaua’i.

The vicious cycle that is the KPD’s chronic manpower shortage can easily lead those working the overtime to develop symptoms of burnout and stress, said Freitas and Lt. Miles Tanabe, who runs the training academy.

Both men point out that even once a recruit successfully completes the academy, it takes between one and two more years of on-the-street experience before the recruit morphs into a confident officer capable of making good decisions in the field.

Losing experienced officers to higher-paying or less-stressful jobs, like Mainland police departments and other law enforcement positions on and off Kaua’i, robs the department not only of essential warm bodies, but also takes away officers who over the years have developed professional efficiency, street contacts, investigative techniques and their own styles of crime-solving and dealing with crime scenes and people them come in contact with in the line of duty, Tanabe said.

There is something wrong with this picture, Freitas said, when an officer works directing traffic on all of his or her days off because his or her regular pay isn’t enough to support a family on the island. That officer should be spending quality time with family on his or her days off, he said.

Even the officer who puts family first and works only one day among his or her days off directing traffic is likely to eventually leave the force for a higher-paying job, said Freitas.

“They’ve got to be de-officer-fied,” or given at least the opportunity to spend their days off without having to put on the uniform, Tanabe said.

One officer who left the force told Freitas if he remained an officer, all he’d leave his family when he died would be a small house and a big mortgage.

The KPD is further handcuffed, the men said, by not being able to offer signing bonuses, help with moving and relocating expenses, and other perks like Mainland police departments can.

When combined with higher wages that other forces offer, it’s tough for KPD to compete, they said.

So, Freitas is proposing a public-private partnership, among other strategies, to agree that there is a problem, and to work towards solutions to the chronic officer shortage.

To offer signing bonuses and help with moving expenses will take a change to state civil services laws, he said. Starting pay for a county (or city and county) police officer in Hawai’i is $31,812, set by union contract.

And don’t forget, Tanabe said, that the state and island try to recruit some of the best and brightest young people, who have college degrees. That puts KPD in competition with Microsoft, IBM, and multinational companies capable of outbidding KPD many times over for a bright youngster’s services.

Potential recruits have to understand the nature of police work, and that a career in law enforcement is possible, the men said.

“Our problem has been, we don’t know if 149 officers is enough, because we can’t get to 149,” said Freitas. Also, he doubts the department will ever reach the point where actual strength and authorized positions are the same number.

Freitas is grateful for small favors, such as grants which allowed the KPD to add two civilian positions, because that allowed him to put on the streets two police officers who had been performing the office tasks the civilians took over.

Grants also allowed for the placement of officers in each of the three public high schools, and a sergeant to supervise those officers.

Also, the level of recruits the KPD does sign “are high-quality people,” Freitas stressed. It’s just KPD doesn’t get enough of them.

So, hiring more quality people, and keeping the experienced officers KPD has, have become jobs one and two, not necessarily in that order. “My only resource is my people,” Freitas said.

Since Freitas became chief near the end of 1995, he has hired 50 people. Even with the shortage of officers, he is pleased with the KPD team protecting the island. He refers to supervising officers as “good teachers and coaches” who bring their years of police experience to and instill values in those under their command.

The academy is one of the things KPD has done right in terms of recruiting and training officers, Freitas said. “There will always be an academy.”

And one good thing is that, with the chronic shortage of officers, Tanabe will have to work extremely hard to work himself out of a job.

“I think I have job security,” Tanabe said. d

Staff Writer Paul C. Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 224).