Jill Schramm/MDN Capt. Jason Kraft, left, and investigator Taylor Schiller go over a report Tuesday at the Ward County Sheriff’s Office.

The Ward County Sheriff’s Department and Minot Police Department are looking to hire.

That has become the norm as vacancies become more difficult to fill.

Currently, the Minot Police Department seeks to hire eight officers. It is unusual to be at full staff due to normal turnover, but being short eight is not typical, said administrative commander Capt. Jason Sundbakken.

“That’s a lot. That’s more than in past years,” he said.

The Ward County Sheriff’s Office has had a deputy opening since January. The position has been advertised twice, the first time drawing four applicants and the second time 13 applicants, of which four actually showed up for testing.

Although some candidates made it to the interview process, none were determined to be right for the department, Roed said.

“If they are not a fit for the position, we’d rather go without,” he said.

In a survey conducted by the North Dakota Association of Counties, 60% of local law enforcement officials in the state say they always or usually have a delay in filling vacant positions. The association surveyed county sheriffs, jail administrators and police chiefs to gather information related to recruitment and retention of law enforcement. The findings were presented to the North Dakota Legislative Interim Government Finance Committee.

Based on survey responses from 44 sheriffs and jail administrators and 22 police chiefs, 11% of local law enforcement positions were open at the beginning of 2022 and 69% of those positions were open for one month or longer.

“The 136 positions that are open across the state in local departments may not sound like a high number, but each number represents an individual that is not responding to a call, patrolling county roads or working in the jail. This most certainly impacts public safety,” Donnell Preskey, government relations specialist with the Association of Counties, said in releasing the survey results.

In 2021, most responding agencies reported a less than 5% turnover; however, a substantial number experienced between 11% and 49% turnover.

Law enforcement officials indicate the struggle of dealing with vacant positions is constant. Almost half of the survey respondents said they have filled a position with an under-qualified individual.

In addition to the officer vacancy, the Ward County Sheriff’s Department has an officer on deployment and two on maternity leave. Roed said the department has adjusted schedules to cover night shifts and has had the officer in charge of handling warrants take patrol or help with civil process, which had fallen behind due to short-staffing for a time.

However, Roed said the department has been able to keep extra officers on patrol because of their willingness to work overtime, paid through grant-funded enforcement programs.

The department does well with retention, and the jail, which typically has turned over about nine employees a year, has seen improved retention as well, Roed said. However, when there are openings, applicants are few. The jail gets two to four applicants for every open position, Roed said.

The Minot Police Department is authorized for 83 sworn officers and currently has 75. A testing event to hire additional officers was held this month and another is scheduled for Aug. 11-12.

Full staff in dispatch is 15 dispatchers plus a manager. Central Dispatch is down four or five people.

Sundbakken said the dispatch center has switched to 12-hour employee shifts to be able to cover with fewer dispatchers. Ten-hour shifts remain for police officers, although there are times when overtime is required or shifts have to be adjusted to maintain minimal staffing levels, he said. More staff would make it easier to operate above the minimum, he said.

“Obviously, the more people you have out on the road, the more possibility for us to see issues that the police department would need to address. We could be more proactive,” he said.

Sundbakken also said applicant numbers have been declining in recent years. Having a significant number of applicants enter the process is important because the screening is comprehensive.

Applicants must pass a physical test to go on to a written test and must pass the written test to be invited to an interview. Sundbakken said, historically, about 60-70% of applicants get to the interview process. However, that final process often rules out more candidates.

“Just because we have openings doesn’t mean we’re just going to hire everybody and fill those openings. We need to make sure that the right people are in those jobs, and we vet those people and their backgrounds thoroughly,” Sundbakken said.

Years ago, the department would test once a year or every other year and develop a list of eligible applicants to draw on as positions needed to be filled. In the last few years, the department has been testing three or four times a year because it no longer has enough qualified applicants to keep a hiring list.

“Many other professions are experiencing the same situation. So we’ve just had to figure out ways to cast our net a little bit wider and deeper, and in places that we hadn’t thought of casting it before,” Sundbakken said. “Any recruitment opportunity I have in this region, I’m participating in or having my people participate in. You just have to figure out ways to reach different people that you haven’t been able to reach before.”

The department has participated in job fairs for the general public, at Minot State University and Alexandria Technical & Community College in Minnesota, which has a law enforcement program. The Ward County Sheriff’s Department also attends local job fairs and high school career fairs.

Roed said the sheriff department’s recruitment efforts are limited by the lack of people entering law enforcement. The Lake Region Law Enforcement Academy, once a good place to recruit, recently had only four people and three already had jobs, he said.

The sheriff’s department acquired two interns through a Minot Air Force Base program that serves to transition separating personnel into other careers. The department ended up hiring both after their three months of internship, although one since has left.

The Minot Police Department runs a Public Safety Cadet Program that introduces youth to the profession. The department has hired former cadets who have gone on to meet requirements to apply for positions.

Applicants must meet one of the following: 60 or more accredited college credits, possession of a current North Dakota Peace Officer license, completion of a state certified law enforcement skills program or certification of four years of full-time U.S. military service with an honorable discharge. They must possess valid N.D. driver’s licenses.

New police officers go through a seven-week training program, followed by a field training program in which they work with a trainer. If they haven’t completed the state’s 12-week law enforcement academy, they enroll to do so.

Sundbakken said the department prides itself on its training.

“We have had other officers come to our agency from other departments because they know that our goal is to have the most highly trained people that we can, and that not only creates a better officer but reduces liability for the city and for our department and for that specific officer,” he said. “In addition to that, we always try and have the most up-to-date and best equipment that we can provide to our people to allow them to better be able to do their jobs. So you know our cars are always fitted with the most recent and best technology that we can fit them with. We provide them with all of the things that they need to do their jobs and the best tools we can provide them.”

To help with recruitment of applicants with peace officer training and experience, the Minot department has the option to offer credit for prior police service with a different, comparable agency. That allows those applicants to start at higher pay and advance more quickly to apply to become a senior officer, which requires three years of experience and comes with a pay increase.

Sundbakken said retention is fairly good once someone is officially brought on the force.

Roed said the area’s previous oil boom took about nine people from the Ward County department.

“We never recovered from it,” he said. “We lost some of our investigators, some people who had been sergeants who had been here for years.”

With 31 years under his belt, Roed estimates he has more experience than the entire patrol division combined.

“We have a lot of officers with probably two to five years of experience,” he said.

Eighty percent of the employees serving in sheriff’s offices and jails have less than 10 years of experience, according to the Association of Counties survey.

The Association of Counties reports pay is a primary reason officers are leaving their jobs, and pay and benefits are listed by departments as a top asset in recruiting. According to the association’s latest salary survey, the average salary for county law enforcement is $58,000.

The Association of Counties proposes several possible state-funded solutions in addressing the employment issue, including hiring and retention bonuses, income tax exemption and relocation incentives.