Kennewick having trouble finding qualified police recruits

The Kennewick Police Department no longer faces a financial barrier to hiring and training new officers, thanks to a new sales tax that went into effect this year to support Benton County public safety agencies. Revenue from the tax is coming in above initial projections.

But finding highly qualified recruits to fill those positions, while keeping up with an increasing number of officers retiring, is providing another challenge.

Chief Ken Hohenberg told the Kennewick City Council recently that it’s the department’s high standards that are responsible for its low number of complaints and high number of compliments from city residents. It’s also become a “destination agency” for those working in law enforcement. But those factors also lead to an arduous hiring and training process that is increasingly weeding out applicants.

“I’m only four (new officers) in,” Hohenberg told the Herald. “I was hoping to have seven hired.”

Voters passed the 0.3 percent sales tax in 2014 with 53 percent of the vote. It adds 3 cents to a $10 purchase. It benefits multiple agencies in Benton County and has led to the hiring of more officers, buying of equipment and helping cover other public safety needs. In Kennewick, finance officials now say the city alone could receive about $2.2 million from the tax this year, about $300,000 more than initially expected.

But of the four new Kennewick officers paid for by sales tax revenue, three of them were hired before the tax went into effect, as arranged with the city council when the tax was proposed. That means only one more has been brought on.

Hohenberg told the Herald that he’s been close to having the number of commissioned officers he had hoped to have by this time. But then a retirement comes along, creating a vacancy he needs to fill in addition to the new hires.

“I have two positions this year I need to fill just from retirements,” he told the council.

And hiring takes time with agility and written tests, polygraph examinations, background checks, at least two intensive interviews and medical and psychological evaluations.

Hohenberg said it looks like fewer people are making it all the way through the process. That doesn’t include those who are cut after receiving a conditional job offer but fail the state’s police academy or get bad marks while on probation with the department.

Some departments around the state have a less thorough hiring process, and Kennewick does lose some candidates who may get hired elsewhere while they are still being processed. But Hohenberg said his department’s system works and is best for the city.

“It’s slow, but it’s eliminated a lot of problems,” he told the Herald.

And while the city may see more money from the sales tax, that won’t mean Hohenberg will be looking to hire more officers than originally planned.

Councilman John Trumbo asked if that additional money could be used for other purposes if it wasn’t needed for public safety but city staff said language in the tax specified it was for that purpose only. That’s for the best given the volatility of sales tax revenue, officials said.

“We really need to have a reserve fund built up,” said councilman Paul Parish.

This story was originally published August 30, 2015 at 9:08 PM with the headline "Kennewick having trouble finding qualified police recruits."