“We actually are not in that bad a shape for a department our size,” said Cpl. Michael Wilcox, Administrative Services Personnel officer.
“We are 130 officers. We currently have three openings and if I can fill those three openings the council has authorized us three over-hire positions,” Wilcox said.
“This is a good thing. If I can keep the over-hire positions full, it allows me to anticipate people leaving and already have people trained to step into that job.”
Recent recruiting efforts by Temple police produced 149 applicants for the civil service test last November. Sixty-nine of those showed up to complete the test, 37 passed and now 11 people are on the short-list.
Typically, about 85 percent of applicants are turned down.
Temple residents can be assured that every policeman on the street has gone through stringent testing - even before they step into pre-academy training. They take a civil service test, and go through drug screening and a physical examination.
They get four weeks of pre-academy, 19 weeks at the academy, then up to 18 weeks of field training.
Getting recruits this far is the hard part.
“When the economy is good, the public service suffers because they just can’t offer what private enterprise can.”
But Wilcox maintains that the police department during the bad times can offer job security.
And, like larger cities that offer sign-on bonuses, Temple offers $3,000.
“Additionly we have a system where we will take your prior law enforcement experience, the number of years that you have, and we’ll plug you in as salary that is comparable to that,” Wilcox said. “We won’t take an officer with five years experience and make him start at the bottom.
Officers in Temple are also able to take their cars home. “That is a bonus,” Sgt. Allen Teston said. “You get used to your car, no one else has been in the seat. You know what it can do.”
The second thing affecting recruitment, Wilcox said, is the country’s world commitments.
“The age that we recruit in, the 21- to 45-year-old, a large number of those young men and women are in the military services.
“We enjoy hiring out of the military, and we get quite a few,” Wilcox said. When hiring from the military we usually get a person that is already disciplined.
Fort Hood is the probably the largest recruiting area, followed by local communities, college students and job fairs. “That’s where we do most of our advertising,” he said.
Wilcox makes a personal observation as well. “The generation that is coming into the workforce now is more of a ‘what are you going to do for me?’ and people that are in a public service work … it’s not about what you can do for me, it’s about what I can do for you. That’s the attraction - that they want to help people,” he said.
Wilcox actually wants to hire more home-grown applicants.
“And we reach out to that. We are going to continue to do that, and I think we are going to raise that level a little more. Home-grown cops’ advantages include knowing the area, the people and the standards of their city.
“Our chief’s goal is to recruit and hire and maintain and retain only those people of the highest caliber. As a result of that we are not willing to relax our standards. We’ll operate short-handed rather than lower or compromise our standards.
“This is a good community. This community is and always has been very supportive of their police department. We have a city administration that I feel supports this organization,” Wilcox said.
Temple will be conducting another civil services test soon. Applications for the test can be found on the city Web site or by contacting the local police department.
