The meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 15, in the council chambers at Lakeport City Hall, 225 Park St.
The agenda and staff reports for the meeting can be downloaded at www.cityoflakeport.com/departments/home.aspx?deptid=88 .
The main item of business is interim Chief Brad Rasmussen's request for the hiring freeze exemption in order to hire one police officer position.
Rasmussen's report to the council explains that he's making the request due to the pending retirement on April 1 of one of his officers.
He said the current proposed police department budget for FY 2010-11 authorizes 10 full-time peace
officer positions with benefits, not including the chief's position, which is set to remain unfilled with the duties covered by existing staff for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Due to a resignation of an officer on Dec. 1, 2010, the department is currently at nine full-time peace officer positions, Rasmussen said. There is also another officer who is currently on long-term leave and pending retirement, which he said will leave the department with only eight working full-time officer positions.
“These vacancies will leave the department in a critical staffing shortage,” he stated in his report.
He noted that in December the council authorized a hiring freeze exemption to allow the department to recruit one officer to fill the United States Department of Justice Cops Hiring and Recovery Program grant position. That recruitment process is almost complete, and that job is expected to be filled within the next two weeks.
Rasmussen said that full-time police officer staffing levels have been reduced from 13 to 11 due to
revenue shortfalls over the last 18 months, making it necessary for the department to adjust workloads increases on existing staff, and use volunteers, part-time and reserve officers to avoid reductions of service to the community.
He said he currently has a pool of qualified candidates, which includes experienced lateral officers.
The budget contains $25,000 in salary and benefits for the position for the remainder of the year, with Rasmussen noting there will be a one-time cost of $2,500 to cover recruitment, hiring and training.
“It is anticipated that these costs can be absorbed by salary savings after the officer’s retirement as the new hire would not be in place until approximately 45 days after the current officer’s retirement date,” he wrote.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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