David Price

Fredonia Police Chief David Price renewed a request to hire three more police officers this week.

“By the end of the month I will be three people down. In a department that size, that’s a critical level. That’s 120 man hours a week,” Price told the Fredonia Board of Trustees. “I’d like to hire three police officers and send them to the academy. If things worked out right, we’d be back to full staffing by September.”

Mayor Michael Ferguson responded, “When we spoke last week about the hiring freeze, we did say, ‘unless there was a need for one on one.’ Now we have three going out, just to maintain basic standards we would need the three coming back in.”

Price said, “I’m not asking for additional staff, and I’m below where we were 10 years ago. There are no part time positions available anymore, and that’s because of a nationwide policing shortage (that) hit our county really bad.”

The police chief continued, “If we fail to do something, it will be a year and half before we even have an opportunity to hire. Within that time, I could lose other people… I recognize that I do have a young department, but we have to do something at this time to get us back to even, and I’m hoping things will level off based on the age of my department.”

Price said that when the next resignation comes in, he will try to add a new dispatcher. The dispatching unit is also short-staffed.

For now, “hiring the three new police officers, it doesn’t create an additional burden on my current budget,” he added.

At the prompting of Trustee Jon Espersen, Price noted that according to state law, any of the officers who left shortly after their hiring would have to pay back the village for the costs of police academy.

Price’s plan to hire officers, then send them to the academy, is a reversal of the village’s current practice. The chief explained there is a shortage of officer candidates who have already been to the academy.

On the current civil service list, “There was only one who had the academy and by the time we called him, he was spoken for,” Price said.

The chief said he’ll take another look at who is available.

“We used to graduate 28 a year (from the academy) with two full time jobs (open). Now we’re graduating 12 a year and there’s 20 full time jobs. So they’re getting scooped up now in the academy,” Price said.

“This would be a great time for someone getting out of high school to think about applying for the academy, because jobs are plentiful,” Espersen commented.