T-R PHOTO BY MICHAEL D. DAVIS — Toledo Police Chief Dan Quigley and Lieutenant Nathan Wunn presented to the city council last Monday night.

TOLEDO — Toledo Police Chief Dan Quigley and Lieutenant Nathan Wunn made a presentation to the city council at last Monday night’s meeting to address some serious concerns — a hiring crisis, in the chief’s words.

Currently, there are two open positions at the Toledo Police Department, which have remained that way for some time. The Toledo PD has been actively advertising for nearly a year with no new recruits.

Quigley spoke about the reasons why people haven’t applied for the position.

“Law enforcement is not an enticing career like it was in the past. People value their time off and prefer to have a stable work-life balance which is difficult to have in public safety. Younger generations hope for more flexible hours and guaranteed time off,” he said. “It takes a special person to want to do this job knowing you will be working nights, weekends, holidays on a rotating schedule. Adding in negative media attention (and) the concern of being publicly scrutinized. Additionally, the application and hiring processes turn some people away.”

During the presentation, Quigley talked about the Toledo PD compared to other local departments, especially when it came to salary and incentives. Larger departments are able to offer incentives, signing bonuses, and specialty positions (I.E. K9, swat, detective), whereas Toledo isn’t. When it came to money, the chief compared the city’s pay rates to others. Toledo’s starting wage for a non-certified officer was $21.50, whereas Tama’s patrol officers were paid $26 to $28 and Dysart Police $30.

He also mentioned Toledo’s policy of requiring officers to buy their own service weapon as opposed to the Tama Police Department and the Tama County Sheriff’s Office, which issue their weapons. The cost of a service weapon varies but can run close to $1,000.

The solution proposed by Chief Quigley to get more applicants for the open position and retain the officers currently employed by the department is mainly a salary increase — bumping the starting wage up from $21.50 to $25 to compete with the surrounding departments. It was also decided to eliminate the second vacant position at the department and have the salary from the eliminated position go to the increase in wages.

The Toledo Police Department will now only be looking to hire one new officer. This course of action was approved by the city council with the only nay vote coming from Duane Pansegrau. It was also approved to implement a salary step program.

Quigley also made it known that this would not be a quick solution, informing the council that if an officer was hired this week with all the training that has to be done, that officer wouldn’t be out on his own till this time next year. Every uncertified officer, once hired, has to go through the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy, which is a 16-week program offered only a few times a year. After the academy, the officer must complete 12 weeks of field training, which is a standard in law enforcement but is not done at every department.

During his presentation, the chief reported that the Toledo PD’s reserve officers have been helping more during the officer shortage, as one reserve officer was reported to be putting in approximately 40 hours a week.

Quigley was asked if he had any other improvements or incentives that he wanted to bring to the table.

“There are others that I would like to do. These are ideas that I hope to work with our city council to implement. One that was recently approved was a $1 an hour shift differential pay for night shift officers. That will go into effect on July 1, 2024,” he said.