Jill Schramm/MDN Minot Police Department headquarters serves as the base of activity for the current 83-member force.

Officer recruitment and retention is the Minot Police Department’s biggest challenge, Chief Jason Olson told the Minot City Council Monday.

The shrinking applicant pool has become a national concern, he said.

“That is probably the biggest kind of crisis that we’re facing right now in terms of staffing. We just are not getting applicants. Realistically, we are hiring every qualified applicant that makes it through our process,” Olson said.

The City of Minot is forming a task force to look at the issue of recruitment and retention in the police force.

“That truly is the most alarming thing that I can report to you in terms of an internal issue that we face,” Olson told the council. “For whatever reason, young people are just not wanting to go into the profession anymore, and it’s getting to the point where it’s really getting to be a concern.”

Olson added a number of young officers decide within their first year that law enforcement is not for them, and they leave the profession.

The Minot Police Department has been at 85% to 90% of full staffing since the oil boom and is currently at 86%, Olson said. The department has 83 officers and three open positions. Five officers were hired in January and three in July. Minot’s department has 1.7 officers for 1,000 citizens, which is near the state average of 1.6.

“We have one of the highest percentages in the state of female officers, currently at 17%,” Olson said. “We are very young. Everybody that starts out starts out on patrol. About a third of our patrol force has less than two years of experience. So that’s about a one-in-three chance that you are going to get an officer on a call that doesn’t have a lot of experience.”

About a third of the force are veteran officers, with the remainder having between two and five years of experience.

Olson said his goal when he took office seven years ago was to make the department the premiere agency to work for in the area and cut the rate of officers leaving to join other law enforcement agencies.

“I can’t say we are there at this point,” he said. “Since 2010, we have had 95 people leave our department for various reasons, and that’s everything from resigning to retiring to being terminated. But of those, one third have gone to work for other law enforcement agencies. So we’re not there yet, and we can continue to work on that.”

Olson said the departure of officers typically isn’t related to the environment in the Minot department. Feedback has been positive from both current officers and officers who have chosen to advance their careers elsewhere regarding their jobs with the local force, he said.

Olson also spoke about workload and the move toward increased technology in law enforcement.

The number of police calls in Minot grew from 29,000 a year to 41,000 a year during the oil boom. Call numbers since have flattened out in the 40,000 range.

“We are not going backwards in calls but we are not seeing the growth that we did,” Olson said.

The crime rate for the more serious crimes has declined from the boom.

“In most categories we’re trending down. We trended up a little bit in simple assault and aggravated assault,” he said.

Olson also reported on the body camera program, which costs about 1,220 per camera per year. The department paid $106,000 for the first year of a five-year contract, which decreases to $65,000 for each of the remaining four years. As far as usage, more than 42,000 videos were uploaded from body cameras, or 10,000 hours of video, in 2018.

The department uses body cameras to review complaints, in conducting internal investigations, for training and coaching officers and as crime evidence.

“It does require a lot of expense and training to keep up with the digital age,” Olson said, explaining that capturing information from surveillance cameras, social media, emails, videos and texts is part of many investigations.

In 2020, the department will be working toward accreditation through the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies. Olson noted there are about 300 standards that must be met each year, including keeping training, policies and procedures up to date, to achieve and retain accreditation.

In 2021, the department will look at adding a digital forensics technician and possibly a crime analyst, Olson said.

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Council approves more buyouts

A number of southeast Minot neighborhoods are included in an involuntary acquisition process approved by the Minot City Council Monday for the flood protection project.

About $8 million is available through the state for the buyout of the area, known as 6 and 6A. It includes properties south of Central Avenue between 14th and 16th Streets Southeast and south of Burdick Expressway, east of 15th Street Southeast

Property owners will receive notices about the process following a 90- to 120-day environmental review, said John Zakian, resilience program manager.

Council member Shannon Straight urged the city administration to hold a meeting in the area to keep people informed about what is happening and answer questions. He also urged action be taken on any purchased properties.

“My fear and concern is that we’re going to be acquiring properties and then they’re not demolished,” he said. “Once we’ve acquired property, we just can’t be sitting on it.”

Zakian responded that a public meeting can be held after notices go out. He added structures will be demolished in a timely manner, but the city also provides for salvageable property to be sold at auction.

The council also voted to authorize the addition of three flood-acquired structures to an auction. Auctioned items are posted on the city’s website with information about the minimum bid process and who to contact to view properties. Interested buyers must mail or otherwise deliver sealed bids by the auction deadline.