Portsmouth police still struggling to fill positions despite 'robust' pay hike

PORTSMOUTH — The city’s Police Department is down seven officers as it struggles to both hire and retain capable candidates, Police Chief Mark Newport told the City Council this week.

Newport described the hiring efforts the city goes through to land new officers as a “stringent multi-faceted process.”

“There’s no doubt this process is rigorous,” Newport said during a budget workshop this week, adding “we currently have a 90% washout rate.

“That’s how difficult it is to find employees in our profession. Couple this with a limited candidate pool, and you can see why this is our primary challenge,” Newport said.

Police resignations outnumber new hires

Despite that, police have been able to hire six new officers and two dispatchers this fiscal year, he said.

The fiscal year ends on June 30.

“This would be great news normally, but we have also seen the resignation of nine officers, (and) three dispatchers … this year,” Newport said.

He added three of the officers and one dispatcher left for other agencies “that paid higher.”

He called Portsmouth’s patrol officers “the face of our department” and “the backbone of our police department.”

The department is struggling with hiring and retention even though the City Council voted in September to approve what city labor lawyer Tom Closson called “robust” pay hikes for the city’s police and fire unions.

Those votes came a year after the council approved 4% across-the-board pay hikes for all city employees.

“The contracts we feel have made an adjustment but it’s a little bit too early in the process, it’s been seven or eight months since they’ve been approved, to see if they work in retention,” Newport said. “I think we’ve been good at hiring officers, now we just need to get better at retaining them.”

Newport acknowledged “recruitment is our number one challenge and our budget driver with our increased contracts.”

Newport: 'We're real thin in patrol right now'

When City Councilor Andrew Bagley asked why there had been a roughly 6% drop in traffic stops by police, Newport pointed to “our staffing levels.”

“We’re real thin in patrol right now. We don’t have the extra bodies out there,” Newport said.

He noted although the department has “some grant-funded traffic positions” it’s hard to fill them when “our officers are working so many hours,” while also maintaining their “minimum staffing levels.”

He told the council that “the number one complaint among our citizens is speeding.”

Although the department is down seven officers now, Newport said there are two new officers attending the police academy who are set to graduate at the end of May.

They also hired an officer from Texas who Newport said is “in the last stages of his field training program, and should be on the streets shortly.”

Chief says police are 'running nonstop'

The police chief stressed “the need is definitely there” to fill all the open positions.

“We’re running nonstop,” Newport said. “Our numbers just to put it in perspective, even if we’re fully staffed at 70 police officers, are still one less police officer than we had in 1998.”

“The need is there, we just have to find people,” Newport added. “We’ve been hiring people, it’s tough to predict when people are going to leave.”

Newport said the effort to hire new officers is “a constant battle,” which includes competing with some communities that offer “signing bonuses.”

But he believes a “new police facility is going to be a huge thing for retention.”

Newport thanked the council during this week’s budget workshop “for approving the contracts that are competitive to attract more officers to our department.”

The continued growth and development in Portsmouth will also impacts the department, Newport said.

“The more people, the more cars, the more calls for service and we are already handling over 40,000 calls for service a year,” he said. “The growth in development over time will likely require beat boundary changes and adjust staffing.”

Newport also pointed to the city’s rail trail, which is set to open officially sometime this fall but people are already using.

“We have taken steps to address the rail trail to make sure we can offer proper enforcement,” Newport said. “This is a 3.6 mile trail through the city and we want to make sure that people remain safe while they’re using the rail trail.”

This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: Portsmouth NH struggles to fill police jobs despite 'robust' pay hike