The Holbrook City Council convened Tuesday, Dec. 20, during which the council received a presentation from Police Chief Nathan Christensen on the needs of the Holbrook Police Department in response to the previous meeting where Mayor Kathleen Smith asked what the council can do to help address the issue of understaffing.
Christensen stated that the police department currently has nine officers, including the three command staff members, and needs 12 to be fully staffed, which has only been accomplished for a small fraction of the last four years in 2019. “For three months, in that four-year period, we were fully staffed… we’ve been running at an average of eight officers.”
The shortage of officers has the potential to impact safety of both the public and the officers, with even Christensen and Lt. Jed Koon working patrol shifts. “These shortages cost a lot in stress and burnout. My guys are burned out. Yes, they make a lot of money because of overtime but the burnout is what worries me. Even me personally. When we go home at night, we’re literally praying that nothing major occurs because if it does, we’ve got to come out and handle it and who’s going to cover our shift the next morning? That’s the stuff we worry about.”
He then went on to explain cost of the hiring process in recruiting an officer as well as the costs involved in equipment and training of that officer, which he estimated is about $300,000 for the first three years, including retirement and other employee related expenses. “So that officer who leaves us at $300,000, we now have to replace that officer with somebody else at $300,000 (in hiring and training costs). So, there’s a $600,000 loss to the city, when an employee leaves, at least from my department.”
Christensen explained this is why retention of officers is so important. Keeping officers in the police department has many factors. “Salary, first and foremost,” he stated, then reiterated that he was not here to talk about salary. “We’re grateful for what the city has done in giving us raises over the past year.” Although Christensen said the pay is not an issue, he did mention other agencies can have a higher pay scale which can deter applicants from the Holbrook department.
Another issue Christensen brought up besides competing with other entities for candidates, is a lack of people to recruit. “We face a barrier because really nobody wants to be an officer anymore.”
Christensen explained that he hopes to improve both in-house and out of house training, which has been difficult due to the short staffing. With the officer shortage both Christensen and Lt. Jed Koon are on patrol shifts on top of their administrative duties, making completion of those duties challenging. “Lt. Koon and I are learning that there’s some deficiencies, that a lot of things aren’t getting done, which I’ll take the blame for that. For failure to train these guys properly in (for example) death notifications and follow-up to certain types of crimes. I’m going to work with Lt. Koon to attempt to, to get some in-house training for some of our newer officers.”
Christensen also discussed creating more in-depth evaluations of officers to improve weaknesses and measure progress.
To help with the issue of understaffing, Christensen mentioned a program to get citizens more involved. “Some programs that I think will help us that I’m looking to try to start is an explorer program. Doing some internships, like a police assistant where they’re paid, maybe temporary employment during the summer internship where they come out, they ride with us, they learn our systems, maybe that’s something that’s long term. We take half of our open positions and try to fill them with a police assistant who’s 19 to 21 years old.” Christensen believes this might entice younger people to go into the police academy and work at the police department in the future.
He also explained that the explorer program would be volunteer-based while the police assistant would be a paid position. “The police assistant would basically be someone who’s paid, who signs an agreement when they’re 20. So, you can go to the academy at 20, as long as you turn 21 before you graduate. Then they will have an agreement at that point; they would go into the police academy for us and take a spot,” he explained. “Now with an explorer program, you have to have an outline or an agenda or we’re going on a syllabus for them to follow, which we would need somebody to oversee that current staff and we don’t have anybody that can do that.”
Christensen also believes the department needs to change its hiring position. “We want to transition away from having candidates sell themselves to us, to where we sell the department to those candidates. It’s what I’m going to try to work at.” He explained that in order to do that, the department needs to listen to their candidates as well as display the culture of the department appropriately, which he views as having a family dynamic. “Everyone working there is very close knit and we get along well. That’s kind of the culture we have. And I want to promote a culture of inclusiveness.”
Christensen also hopes to move the recruiting process from paper to online, as well as required two full shift ride-alongs for new recruitments to further determine if the job is a good fit.
Christensen also thinks a cohesive brand for the department would also be a good idea. “In my budget meetings, I want to see if I can get some type of budget line for working with a marketing company to try to build a brand for us so that all of our messages, whether it be Facebook, radio commercials, things like that that are all consistent so that people can identify us, they see a poster and boom, they know we’re Holbrook PD and not some other police department.”
He also asked staff on what they would like to see change. “A lot of people said bring back the Thanksgiving turkeys. The city used to give everyone a turkey on Thanksgiving. I don’t know if you guys remember that. Back in the ‘90s right before Thanksgiving, the city gave every employee a turkey.” Some also stated city get togethers are also important. “Those are good morale builders, when employees see that they’re cared about.”
Another mentioned improvement was Christmas bonuses or gift cards, as well as longevity bonuses, sick and vacation buyback, and training opportunities. “Last year, we enrolled in what’s called Virtual Academy, and there’s over 250 Arizona Post credit hours that officers can get by these virtual trainings.” Christensen also listed employee referral bonuses and shift differential pay as mentioned benefits that could be provided.
When asked how the council could help the department, Christensen said promoting via social media is the best path.
Vice Mayor Francie Payne thanked Christensen for the information but believe it should mainly be discussed with City Manager Ted Soltis, stating, “This is basically information for us. These are the things that Manager Soltis and the chief will discuss. And that’s how we got so much done last year. We left it to Ted, and he put together a package that really moved the department forward a lot closer to everybody else in the area. And I think we’d like to keep on with that.”
Councilmember Robert Black replied to her statement saying, “I was a little bit confused on what Councilman Payne said when she said that the things that were implemented last year had done what they needed to do to get you fully staffed, and I knew it hadn’t been fully staffed in a long time. So, I was kind of confused there.”
Payne responded stating “I apologize for the confusion. But I think what I said was we made great strides last year. We know we haven’t solved it. But if we meet that constraint, on a regular basis, we’d be there. So, I think that the city manager and the chief both know that that’s where we want them to go. And hopefully, they can map it out so we can get them.”
Mayor Smith thanked Christensen for his presentation. “As a council, the PD is important to us, and the safety of our officers, as well as the safety of our citizens is a high priority for each of us. And so we appreciate that.”
During the meeting, Smith also discussed the idea of changing the second meeting of every month into a work session meeting, to allow the council members to meet and discuss goals, budgets and new ideas for the city. “And I would like to see us maybe do the first meeting of the month, do a regular meeting, with a regular agenda, and then make that second meeting a work session,” Smith stated. Citizens are allowed to attend work sessions as they are not executive sessions. “So typically, there’s no action taken at a work session, it is literally just a discussion,” explain Smith, “We don’t have to have a quorum per se, because there is no action item, although it’d be encouraged because we want everybody’s input.”
Vice Mayor Francie Payne and Councilmember Tim Dixon raised concern for the potential of unnecessary work sessions if they were to be permanently added to the schedule. “I do not want to be having work sessions, just because we’ve scheduled and we’re going to probably need to have several to go to things,” stated Payne. Dixon echoed her statements, saying “I think, in the way that it’s worked very well over the past several years that I’ve been on council is that if we needed a work session, we scheduled that. If we need a series of work sessions, we’ve scheduled those for a couple meetings in a row, but just to put blanket work sessions on the agenda for every second meeting, I don’t see a need for that.”
Councilmember Arcenia Pacheco stated it would be ideal to schedule work sessions directly after the second monthly meetings, so as not to replace the meeting and not interfere with schedules prior to the meetings.
The council agreed with Pacheco and planned to have work sessions after the regular meetings as needed.
For the first work session meeting, the council decided to schedule it, as well as the second council meeting in January, for the 23rd rather than the 26th, so as all members and City Manager Ted Soltis could attend. “The motion is we will have our regular scheduled meeting on Jan. 12. And then on Jan. 23, we’ll have a regular scheduled meeting first followed by a special work session. And we will cancel the January 26 meeting,” explained Smith. After this the meetings are planned to occur on every second and fourth Thursday of each month per usual. The motion was unanimously approved.
Mayor Smith also asked the council to think of ways the city could create a recognition program for city employees, referencing Navajo County’s Employee Recognition Program. “They have a care committee that goes once a month to the board of supervisors’ meeting, and they recognize an employee of the month that’s nominated. And so, the discussion here, is this something that may be the City of Holbrook might be interested in doing as an employee recognition for our own employees? And if so, what would that look like?”
The council decided to do further research to bring to the work session the following month.
Councilmember Pacheco brought up the idea of training for the council on best practices of city councils and open meetings law. “I feel that it would be beneficial for all of us to attend or have some kind of orientation and training,” Pacheco explained. “I started doing research and noticed that other cities do have that right after elections, when they’ve been canvassed, they would learn like how the meetings are run, what’s the acceptable procedure, so that everyone know how to conduct themselves.”
City Manager Ted Soltis stated he would do some research and get back to the council in regard to specific dates that training could be done with Arizona League of Cities and Towns.
