T he last few years have proved challenging for law enforcement agencies, even more so for smaller ones, when it comes to recruiting. Branch County, Michigan, Sheriff John Pollack recently spoke to OFFICER Magazine about how finding new deputies has become harder and what his agency is doing to cope with the new normal.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
This article appeared in the July/August issue of OFFICER Magazine. Click Here to subscribe to OFFICER Magazine.
What are some of the challenges the Branch County Sheriff’s Office faces?
The current misrepresentation of law enforcement has really caused a lack of applications. Then you couple that with low pay—especially for the smaller offices like ours who have tighter budgets. We have agencies next door that have more funding and offer better pay and benefits, and they are now going out to the academies to recruit. We don’t have the ability to send people out to these job fairs and those kinds of things to recruit people. Our best recruitment tool has been word of mouth from our staff through talking to their acquaintances. The benefits of this of course are that we get applicants who have a better understanding of what they’re getting into.
How does the budget play a role in both the number and quality of recruits the Sheriff’s Office is able to attract?
Before 2013 we had 23 deputies that worked here on the road. When we began 2013, we were cut to eight. We eventually had to cut out our night patrol. A sheriff is responsible for the law enforcement in Michigan for all of the residents within his county. If the state can’t be here or if some reason they get called to another jurisdiction or if they get called out of the county, the sheriff is left to cover that, and I have eight people to do that. You couple that with the fact that we have courthouse security, we have inmate transfers for both the courts and for doctors’ appointments and to and from prison. These officers have to handle that and their complaint load. Our backlog of complaints for these guys is like six feet long; it’s very taxing.
What is the competition like from neighboring law enforcement agencies?
Up until recently, we were the lowest paying agency in the county and in probably the four counties that surround us, including the two counties down in Indiana and one in Ohio. We were paying less than even some of our villages in our own county were paying their officers. We’re also a border state, which adds an additional avenue for our officers to explore. Most states have their own standards for officers they have to meet before they can be hired but those standards now are being waived, making it much easier for our folks to leave.
Does your department find it challenging to convince deputies to stay with the department?
With a small agency, we’re able to have a relationship with our officers that a big department won’t have. We’re able to offer them things like drone patrol, dive team and SWAT. If they went to a larger agency, they would have to wait years to apply or even be considered for those positions. Here, it’s a part of your job. You’re going to get the training and you’re going to be a part of that. We don’t do it as much, but we do it enough to keep them interested.
How have you seen recruiting change during your 10 years as a sheriff in Branch County?
We’ve gone from requiring academy certification and using criteria to scale down the volume of applications to developing recruitment strategies. We attend job fairs and have to try to figure out how to draw these guys into our department. We’re now even paying for perspective applicants to attend an academy and we’re paying them a wage while they go. For us that’s a real risk because being in a smaller agency, they complete the academy, they come back here and move on to a bigger department or a department closer to where they want to be and we’ve paid for their training. That’s a real risk for us and has been a big change. They used to be lined up and now there’s no one.
Listen to the full interview at: officer.com/53066404
This article appeared in the July/August issue of OFFICER Magazine. Click Here to subscribe to OFFICER Magazine.
