Officer Andrae Smith, the recruiter at the Plano, Tex., Police Department, had jobs to fill. He commissioned five billboards with a big number: $97,646. That was the top salary a police officer could earn in the wealthy Dallas suburb. iThat number is now $108,150. “The No. 1 attraction is the pay,” said Smith. It is an expensive move, about $30,000 per billboard a year, but it was necessary when a tight labor market made hiring diffiicult. The billboards have attracted 386 applicants to take Plano’s police exam, resulting in 30 hires. Policing has struggled to get and keep workers since the pandemic. Burned-out employees quit or retired. There were nearly 19,000 fewer officers in 2023 than 2019, a 3% drop. Hiring can be hard for departments around big cities. Usually, officers tended to progress from police departments in small and medium-size cities to large ones, said Chuck Wexler of the Police Executive Research Forum, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Now, many want the opposite, especially in the years since a Minneapolis officer killed George Floyd in 2020. Small and medium agencies have more sworn officers than they did before the pandemic, according a PERF survey of more than 200 police departments. Big agencies have fewer officers than they used to. Cities have increased perks to attract candidates. The Bellevue, Wa., Police Department began offering take-home cars as a recruitment and retention tool. It also offers the option to use up to three on-duty hours a week to work out.
Other states are easing restrictions on joining the police. Last month, Dallas relaxed its policy on visible tattoos. Last year, Pennsylvania said it would remove a requirement that state trooper recruits have a certain number of college credits. The Seattle Police Department began accepting applications from recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Typically, only U.S. citizens can join the police. In 2023, the average annual wage for police and sheriff’s patrol officers was $76,550, a 13% increase from 2019,