City departments short-staffed, managing recruiting problems

LACONIA — The police department will be soon down 11 officers amid recruiting difficulties and competition between regional law enforcement agencies for qualified employees, the city council learned Monday night. 

The police have eight open positions, one officer who is pregnant and will be put on light duty and two officers who are due for 12 weeks of paternity leave. The public works and fire departments are dealing with similar issues but to a lesser extent. 

Ward 1 Councilor Bruce Cheney reported his concern regarding staffing issues at the police department, which has eight vacant positions for patrol officers, one officer who is pregnant and will soon go on maternity leave and another three officers who will soon take paternity leave. 

The police department sent representatives to a recent career fair at the University of Massachusetts and heard from only one student over the entire day, Cheney said Tuesday.

“He sends people to a job fair at UMass [sic] and gets one kid that’s interested in talking to them.”

Cheney, who was the chief of police in Laconia in the late 1970s and 1980s, said it's a difficult problem to tackle that presents vulnerabilities for the city.

“This is not a problem for Laconia,” he said, noting the city cannot afford to lose qualified officers to other communities. “This is a problem throughout the United States.”

Pay and benefits are partly to blame for the lack of staff, and those issues should be addressed quickly, he explained. 

“I am desperate to keep the people that we have. I’m concerned that we need to maintain the people that we have,” he said. “I don’t have a simple solution.”

Cheney noted that when he was chief, they would routinely receive over 100 applications for just one or two open positions. 

“We can’t afford to try to hire at a pay grade lower than surrounding towns,” he said.

Cheney said young officers tend to look for better than average pay and more time off the job and the fire and public works departments are dealing with similar issues.

“The worst of it is, for me, I think we have some outstanding employees,” he said. “I think we need to bring the hourly wage up to be competitive with surrounding cities and towns — the competition is incredible.”

Cheney floated the idea of offering bonus pay for city employees who remain on staff for long periods of time. 

City Manager Kirk Beattie said recruitment and retention of city employees is a main priority and concern in his office, noting the public works department is down in staff significantly.

“We have a hard time competing with the private companies who can pay more,” he explained.

His office is looking at ways to increase starting salaries and benefits for new employees as part of the budget process and said a retention bonus is helping to improve the situation.

“We have a longevity bonus that we do and we increased it last year,” he said. “That’s certainly been well-received.”

Competition between cities and towns in the region is fierce, which is one aspect of the problem, he said.

“We are on par in some areas, but we do lack in comparison to some other communities,” he said. “I think there’s a lot of factors. All of our departments are very busy, there’s a significant workload on all of them.”

Finding young people interested in going into police, fire and public works positions is a major problem facing the city, he explained.

“Recruitment and retention of young people into public safety jobs is something we’ve been working on for a number of years now,” he said, adding that sending police department representatives to career fairs out of state is one strategy they’ve used to increase recruitment.

Laconia Police Chief Matt Canfield said a confluence of factors including pay and benefits, public perception of police work in the years following the COVID pandemic and the relative strength of the economy makes it difficult to recruit new officers.

“Right now we have eight vacancies,” Canfield said. “That attrition is for a number of reasons.”

Several officers retired over the past two years and a handful of new recruits failed to complete their probationary training period. A rigorous background check plus a six-week, in-house training program, followed by 16 weeks at the state academy and another 12 weeks training in the field weeded out several new hires.

“It’s pretty rigorous,” he said. “But the outcome is that we develop qualified and competent police officers.”

The department is considered fully-staffed at 45 officers, and there are another four grant-funded positions also vacant. The police department fields 37 officers to-date.

“This is a nationwide problem,” he said, explaining that starting pay and benefits are not competitive with other towns and cities in the Lakes Region. The police department in Franklin offers a $20,000 hiring bonus to new recruits — Laconia offers $2,500 to uncertified officers and $5,000 to those who are already certified. The starting salary range for officers in Laconia is between $51,625 and $76,710, negotiable based on experience.

“That’s one of our significant challenges right now,” he noted. “The pay is significantly non-competitive, as well as the benefits.”

There are more open positions for police officers statewide than there are qualified applicants to fill them, creating a seller’s market, he said.

“There’s a big hole in police hiring here in New Hampshire and across the country,” he said, noting that certified officers with a clean background have their choice of working for just about any agency. 

Despite challenges in recruiting and retention, the police department is still able to respond to every call to service. 

“Our officers here in Laconia are outstanding,” he said, adding they deserve to be paid a competitive wage and receive high-quality benefits. “They work really hard — I couldn’t be more grateful to the officers we have here.”

Public Works Director Wes Anderson said low starting salaries are a major contributor to his department being short staffed. He’s authorized for 30 employees, but only has 27 at present. His position running the department is included in that figure. 

“I am short three of my highway personnel, but last year I was short seven for a while,” he said. “And I only have 30 people.”

Salaries are increasing in the private construction industry faster than in the public sector, which is a contributing factor to his labor shortage, he explained. A qualified CDL driver could make $35 or $40 per hour starting out with area construction companies, whereas a city employee with a CDL at the public works department would be paid $19.72 an hour starting out. New hires without a CDL are paid $17.99 an hour.

But the public works department will pay for the CDL training of a new employee at a price tag of about $5,500, he said. The first batch of city-funded CDL drivers completed training in October, and Anderson worries that in a year or two some of those employees may seek employment in the private sector.

“I have enough to operate if everyone’s at work, but it gives me no flexibility,” he said, explaining that if employees are out sick or take vacation his department is left short-handed. “I don’t have enough people in my highway department to do all of the work we’re assigned.”

Higher starting salaries and hiring bonuses for employees who stick around through the winter are two potential avenues to increase recruitment and retention, he said. 

In other business, council:

• Recognized Laconia firefighter Mark Miller, who died while conducting water rescue training 20 years ago. The council held a moment of silence in Miller’s honor. 

• Heard the Robbie Mills Memorial Tournament raised over $10,000 for the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction and the Lakes Region Boys & Girls Club. The event has raised over $100,000 in 16 years. 

• Approved the sale of lot No. 18 in Lakes Business Park for $150,000 to construct contractors bays to store equipment. Property taxes will go to Gilford but Laconia will earn income on a portion of the sale.

• Scheduled a public hearing Monday, March 25 regarding the acceptance of a $15,000 donation from Kurt and Polly Brungardt to the police department to help fund an outdoor shooting range. 

• Tabled a request to establish commercial bulk fees for garbage and recycling disposal at the transfer station. 

• Scheduled a public hearing March 25 to discuss the lease of a portion of the dock at the Weirs to the New Hampshire Boat Museum, which will lead tours of Lake Winnipesaukee at the site of a former paddleboat tour company. 

• Approved a request to use up to $25,000 of non-capital reserve funds to remediate and repair mold damage at the Laconia Central Fire Station.

• Approved a resolution to stop offering public services to Effar Street, Hayes Road, Lane Court and Wallace Court on Oct. 1.