Visalia Police say more officers could be out patrolling the streets this year, thanks to a fully staffed department. Sgt. Steven Phillips says he gets a call nearly every day from someone interested in becoming a police officer.
Sgt. Steven Phillips said, "Interestingly enough I spoke to someone the other day who's 33 years old wanted to go through the academy and was looking for a change in employment and also sometimes they look for the stability of a job with the city."
Phillips says high unemployment rates are making the department's job pool larger. The Visalia Police Department is expected to fill its remaining two open positions within a couple months, meaning the agency will be at full staff ... 142 sworn officers ... for the first time in years.
"It's always good the idea is to put the officers on the street and if you have open vacancies that's money you have positions for but you don't have any of the officers there to fill those positions so we are up to full staffing it is great," said Phillips.
The Hanford Police Department is also seeing more job applicants, and current officers say Hanford's salaries are more competitive with bigger cities like Los Angeles. But lt. George Hernandez says the department is still trying to cut costs during today's economic downturn.
Lt. George Hernandez said, "There is one position that we were granted in January that we probably will not be filling that will be placed on hold until the economy gets better."
Not every department can afford to fill all their vacancies. Tulare County Sheriff's officials say while they have 25 positions open they're not actively recruiting to fill those jobs because of the uncertainty of the state budget.
Porterville Police say they've also been filling more vacancies this year than years past. Tulare Police say the economy hasn't really changed its job pool.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
abc30 News Links:
Links to other news sections on our website.
- HomePage
- Top Headlines
- Fresno Local News
- State News
- National/World News
- Entertainment News
- Business News
- Politics News
- Sports News
- Health Watch
- Consumer Watch
- Mr. Food
Breaking News Alerts:
Click Here to Sign-Up for Breaking News E-Mail Alerts
Receive Breaking News alerts in your email inbox.
Click Here to Sign-Up for Text Message Alerts
Receive Breaking News alerts right on your cell phone.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
