The Seymour Police Department is hiring two new officers to replace two of the four officers who left the department last year.
The Seymour Police Department signed a conditional contract with the officers last month. As long as they pass psychological and polygraph tests this week, they will be sent to the Milford Police Academy to begin training for the job.
The earliest the two new officers will start working on their own is mid-December, according to Lt. Paul Satkowski.
“We’ve been trying to replace those openings,” Satkowski said. “They’re finally letting us hire two right now. We would like to hire four.”
The department has been struggling with overtime costs, as officers fill in extra shifts left by the four vacancies. Also, the department has several absences due to injury or illness. As of Monday, there were five officers out on sick or injury leaves.
“We’re down nine bodies right now,” Satkowski said.
Satkowski said some of the people out might not return, although it’s not yet clear.
“Feasibly, by later this year, we could have seven full-time openings,” Satkowski said.
Seymour is paying about $7,500 a week in overtime costs, according to Satkowski. That figure fluctuates depending on the number of officers out on leave during a particular week.
He expects the costs will increase during the summer, when officers usually request their vacation time.
Seymour Board of Police Commissioners Chairman Lucy McConologue said the decision to hire two officers instead of four was made because there were only two spots at the police academy and because the town is still working out the budget for 2012 – 2013.
“Right now with the budget process, we really don’t know what is in store for us or what is going to be available for us financially,” McConologue said. “We’re looking at the funds we have right now and what we can do with those funds before we try to jump ahead.”
“You have to work with whatever you have in your budget,” McConologue said.
The town currently budgets enough for 41 full-time employees at the department — including the chief, administration and officers.
First Selectman Kurt Miller has proposed less money in the police department’s salary line item next year.
Miller said the lower salary budget takes into account the amount of time it takes to train and get new officers working.
“The town will be hiring back two new officers. They have to go to training,” Miller said. “By the time these folks get out of the academy, it’s five or six months into the budget. So there’s a savings on the salary line.”
The department pays $600 a week to the officers while they are training. Once they begin working at the department, they get paid $25.51 an hour — or about $53,000 a year.
It’s not clear when the town can get two more slots in the academy to fill all four vacancies, Miller said.
“At this point we don’t have any open spots in any training classes,” Miller said. “I think we can get by this year with those two new officers. Obviously there are going to be overtime costs.”
The Hiring Process
Seymour had a list of about 125 to 150 candidates to chose from for the hiring process. The candidates had already been tested by the South Central Criminal Justice Administration.
From there, Chief Michael Metzler narrowed the search down to six candidates.
They were interviewed by the Seymour Board of Police Commissioners.
Seymour gave conditional offers to two: Michael Butler of East Haven and Jennifer Smith of Southbury.
“By the end of this week we’ll have a better understanding of where we stand with the two candidates,” Satkowski said. “We don’t anticipate any problems.”