The Little Rock Police Department intends to streamline its hiring process and boost recruitment efforts to fill scores of officer vacancies in its ranks.
Officials have said the vacancies -- more than 70 on a force authorized for 590 -- have slowed responses to calls and reduced the visibility of officers in the community.
The Police Department created a recruitment plan based on recommendations from the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Virginia-based Human Resources Research Organization.
"It's going to bring us up to a level playing field," said Capt. Heath Helton, who oversees the division that handles recruitment and training.
The outside consultants gave a presentation at a Little Rock Board of Directors meeting last week. Helton also outlined the department's recruitment plans. Last summer, the city commissioned the outside review for just under $120,000.
To fill the vacancies, the Police Department plans to increase the number of recruit classes, restructure the interview process and review the factors that disqualify applicants, according to the recruitment plan.
Police Chief Kenton Buckner said the fact that the department loses about 95 percent of its applicants during the hiring process was the motivation for the outside review.
The department needs about 1,000 initial applicants to find 50 qualified recruits, officials said.
"It's a clear indication that something was wrong with the process," Buckner said.
A draft of the review, which described the department's staffing issues as "severe," found that the Police Department is dealing with a small pool of qualified applicants because so many who apply have a history of substance abuse or criminal violations, even if they are minor infractions.
The review also reported that the Police Department has strong competition from other organizations, such as private security firms, the military and other law enforcement agencies.
Police departments throughout Arkansas and across the country face recruiting challenges as authorities see a drop in the number of applicants, officials have said. Manpower shortages have been reported in a number of major U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Portland, Ore.
Helton said the department will likely increase the number of recruit classes from two to four a year until the number of officers stabilizes.
Officials also plan to evaluate applicants through a composite score that takes into account a variety of factors, including an applicant's education, written exam scores and structured-interview performance.
The composite score will also take into account whether an applicant is bilingual or has military experience, Helton said.
In the past, candidates could only pass or fail the interview, something that resulted in the department disqualifying applicants, Helton said.
"The structured interview is not going to be a sole disqualifier now," he said at the board meeting. "We've come up with the idea of ... an overall composite score."
Buckner said he has heard from a number of community members, including a manager at a Kroger, that they were not hired because of their performance in the interview.
"We ask that you give our new process a try," Buckner said to anybody who feels they might be a good candidate for the department.
The Police Department and the city's Human Resources Department have already evaluated the structured-interview process, Helton said, and they plan to suggest changes to the Civil Service Commission in the next few weeks.
"We've totally restructured how the panel is done," Helton said.
Police and city officials also plan to re-evaluate the standards for becoming a police officer.
Many of the disqualifying factors were established more than a decade ago, Helton said, and can be out-of-date with the current crop of applicants.
"Times have changed," he said, mentioning that many applicants seem to have a past history of drug use. "Things are a little bit different now."
The department wants to be reasonable in determining the disqualification factors, Buckner said, but it will continue to have a zero-tolerance policy for some violations, such as a felony conviction or domestic violence.
Police and human resources officials will determine the modifications and introduce them to the Civil Service Commission later this year, Helton said.
Helton said the changes will not lower the bar for becoming a Little Rock police officer.
City Director Joan Adcock said modifying the standards would allow the department to be more forgiving of violations committed during an applicant's youth.
Adcock said she hopes the recommendations will have an effect on the officer vacancies, which she said have caused longer response times from police.
It's a topic that often comes up at neighborhood meetings, she said.
Consultants found that officer vacancies were felt across the Little Rock Police Department, including the training division, which is short half its authorized personnel.
The department moved three sworn officers to the division last year after some initial recommendations from the consultants.
Little Rock police also face recruiting competition from other agencies.
During the last hiring process, Helton said, the department's top two candidates were offered positions early and were hired by Conway and North Little Rock.
"They said, 'Yeah, we wanted to come to Little Rock, but they offered us first, and we felt obligated to go to them,'" Helton said at the board meeting.
The department is now looking into purchasing background investigation software to streamline the process, instead of relying on mail.
"Why we still do things [through] snail mail, I'll never know," Helton said at the Board of Directors meeting last week.
Helton said the department still contacts an applicant's references through the mail, which can delay the hiring process.
In the review, the consultants urged the department to create a brand for itself and recommended implementing an "everyone is a recruiter" philosophy.
At the meeting, Helton said the department is moving forward on providing every officer in the department with a "recruiter card," which displays the department's contact information and can be given to a potential recruit.
"We want to add that personal touch, almost like what college athletics does with an athlete," Helton said.
Helton also said the department must have its own stand-alone recruiting Web page to attract applicants, and it will consider creating separate social media accounts for Little Rock police recruiting.
A Section on 03/06/2017