A motion to reduce the number of police supervisors by demoting one to patrol duty was delayed by Mount Vernon City Council based on feedback from Police Chief Robert Morgan.
He told the council during Tuesday’s meeting the move would have little effect because that officer is already part of the unit.
“Effectively, ladies and gentlemen, the only thing that's going to happen with the passage of this legislation is the individual in question is going to be still working the road, he will be doing the same job he's doing now except he will not be a supervisor. He won't have the supervisory responsibilities,” Morgan said.
But as a senior patrol officer, he still likely would have to perform those supervisory duties without the title or pay.
Samantha Scoles’ motion to indefinitely postpone the legislation was approved.
“As you're aware, my initial motivation for this was to provide for boots on the ground for our patrol forces,” she said.
With her motion to put off the action, Scoles said she was relying on the police chief’s word that due diligence would be done to bring staff levels up and efforts were made to boost the morale of the police department.
Councilmember Mike Hillier said he supported Scoles.
“When I talked to officers, they say, well, we have three men on the street,” Hillier said. “I feel for them, I feel for them terribly. They're working a 12-hour shift and they're running their tails off. And all we're trying to do is get more people out there until you get more people trained and hired.”
Addressing the staff shortage, Morgan said three officers have been hired and are doing well in their training. They are on track to be fully trained by the first part of February. An officer on family medical leave has returned to duty, as has an officer who has returned from military service. Another officer whose arm was broken on duty remains on light duty this month.
“She is still doing light duty work where she's checking reports and reviewing videos and working with the drug task force and so on and so forth,” Morgan said. “So she's staying busy.”
The police department still has two more hires needed and has completed two more interviews. Another application for a lateral transfer has been received and is being processed. A couple of candidates have been turned down. He said the fear expressed about lateral transfers is that Mount Vernon would take on other cities’ problems.
“We've run into a couple people that were somebody else's problem,” Morgan said. “And we said, ‘Thank you, but no thank you’.”
Scoles asked if there was a better time to do training since the department is short of officers.
Morgan said the department is required to conduct training annually. Normally, that is done in the fall, but it was put off until now because of staffing shortages.
Scoles also asked how the city can keep more officers from leaving.
Morgan said the city needs to fill up the ranks of the department. And it needs to work on the compensation package and the contract package. Negotiations are expected to start in January.
“We’ve got to be more competitive with more departments that are around us," he said. "I spoke to the Mansfield police chief today; he's down 13 officers. The lieutenant from the Ohio State Highway Patrol said they're down 200 officers. Columbus is down a couple hundred officers."
Mount Vernon will be competing with these agencies for the newest crop of officers as they come out of peace officer training.
