The City of Bismarck approved requests for incentive time to recruit two experienced police officer candidates. Leanne Schmidt is Director of Human Resources for the City of Bismarck.
"The request was for forty hours of incentive time off for two applicants who are very experienced and licensed. They're taking significant salary decreases from they are currently making at their current jobs to what we can offer based on internal equity. Our investment in terms of training is going to be less then someone we have to get licensed and have to run through the whole program and is new or newer. And so, there's an advantage to us to get experienced officers hired. "
Schmidt says the city has offered the 40 hour incentive time on a case by case basis, but she hopes to develop a policy to add to their benefits for experienced officers.
"I think these folks having the experience where some of the others haven't, or haven't been licensed, being able to bring those experienced officers in is not as common as bringing folks in that we have to do more training and actually get licensed."