FINDING PUBLIC SERVANTS

Feb. 19--There's a limited pool of applicants for public safety jobs.

That wasn't always the case. Not so long ago, the Kentucky State Police were drawing job applicants from surrounding states. Likewise, when the Daviess County Fire Department held testing for new firefighters in the basement of the county courthouse, it was "standing room only" in the testing room, county Fire Chief Dwane Smeathers said.

"Now, we're lucky to get 10 to 15 applicants," Smeathers said last week. "The last time we hired, we had less than 10."

But, Smeathers said, people who hire onto the county fire department tend to make it a career. While many deputies at the Daviess County Sheriff's Department are career officers, Captain Barry Smith, a member of the department's command staff, worries that a day is coming when that will change.

"A relatively small agency would be greatly affected if you started seeing a large amount of turnover," Smith said. "Over the next five to six years, I think the (state's) new 401(k) blend retirement system is going to affect us in a way that's going to force salaries to increase to retain employees."

There are many factors affecting public safety agency's ability to attract employees, or retain them once they've been hired. In addition to changes in the pension system for hazardous duty workers like police officers and firefighters, there is competition, as departments compete for the same pool of potential candidates. There's also the fact that an officer or firefighter, after a few years on the job, gains marketable skills that make them attractive in the private sector.

In recent years, law enforcement agencies have been contending with both high-profile incidents that have created skeptical or negative views of officers, and with reports of assaults and ambushes where officers targeted and killed.

Wayne Turner, chief of the Bellevue Police Department and a member of the Kentucky League of Cities board of directors, said starting salaries for law enforcement officers vary widely across the state.

"In northern Kentucky, we tend to pay more than in other parts of the state," Turner said. "We found the average starting salary in $38,000 to $41,000" in northern Kentucky, Turner said.

"In other parts of the state, that's probably top-out" salary, Turner said.

Steve Mitchell, Chief of the Owensboro Fire Department, said regional departments have to vie for applicants, and one way they do that is with pay. In December, the Henderson City Commission approved pay raises for police and firefighters. Henderson Gleaner reporter Laura Acchiardo wrote commissioners approved the raises "to compabe a high loss of officers over the last five years."

"When you have cities that are as close together as ours, you're competeing for the same pool," Mitchell said. "When people go to college to become a firefighter, there's just not that many of them."

While potential firefighters look at other factors when choosing a department, applicants "look at your whole package -- salary and benefits," Mitchell said.

OFD is currently in a hiring process for new firefighters. According to the city's Web site, a starting full-time officer who works 2,912 hours annually wold make $34,872, which includes base pay and state incentive pay. The Gleaner reported, with the pay increases, Henderson firefighters would have an annual salary between $36,981 and $38,321.

Prior to Henderson's salary increase, OFD had a higher starting salary, Mitchell said. Now, Owensboro is the lower of the two, and has a lower staring salary than Bowling Green and Paducah, Mitchell said.

"Bowling Green is always are target," Mitchell said. "... We consider Bowling Green is about the mid-range, and we're lower than them."

Mitchell said the agency is looking at salary options for the next budget year. Other cities have pay incentives for firefighters, such as extra pay when a firefighter becomes a certified emergency medical technician, and even a daily lunch stipend.

Retention isn't a major issue for the fire department, but future hiring is a concern, Mitchell said

"We could potentially get, depending on houw our retirements go, six to 10 people off (the new applicant) list, and we want good, quality people," Mitchell said.

Smeathers said the Daviess County Fire Department rarely hires more than one new firefighter at a time. People who hire onto the department tend to stay, Smeathers said.

"Historically, the salaries for firefighters is low, but the big draw is the love of the job," Smeathers said. "Our average pay is below the Owensboro Fire Department and Hendeson Fire Department.

Changes in the state's pension system has affected public safety hiring. "The pension is so much different than it was years ago," Smeathers said. "There are three (pension) tiers, and I have people in all three tiers."

There are three retirement tiers for hazardous duty employees. The first, for people employed in hazardous professions prior to 2008, is based on the employee's three highest-paying years of service. Tier I employees are eligible for their full pensions after 20 years of service.

Tier II is for employees hired between September 1, 2008 and before January 1, 2014. An employee has to work 25 years to receive the maximum benefit under the Tier II plan.

The third "tier," for employees hired after January 2014 receive what is often known as the "hybrid cash balance," or the "401(k) hybrid" plan. The plan gives employees contributing to their retirement a guaranteed 4 percent return on their investments annually, plus 75 percent of the earnings above the 4 percent, said Sen. Joe Bowen, an Owensboro Republican who studied the state's pension systems and worked on bills that would make the systems more transparent to the public.

"That was 2013. I was here at that time, and we did change it from a defined benefit to a hybrid cash balance plan," Bowen said. "... The plan is a better plan than anything you'd find in the private sector."

Turner said the hybrid plan for new workers less certain than the earlier defined benefit pensions.

"It's a 401(k), and you don't know what your 401(k) is going to be worth when you retire," Turner said.

The system was altered with bipartisan support. "The impetus ... was if we didn't do something, 50 percent of payroll was going to go for pensions and benefits, and we couldn't sustain that," Bowen said. "We had to make a change and do something, if we were going to (save) the system at all."

A benefit to the plan, Bowen said, is retirees can put their plan earnings into other funds that earn annual returns, generating revenue. "They can continue whatever they have in their balance," Bowen said.

Not all harzardous duty retirees retain health insurance. "That depends on which tier you're in," Bowen said.

Smith, of the Daviess County Sheriff's Department, said new deputies don't generally worry about their pension plans in the first few year of their careers. Later on, pensions become more important.

"The new pension system just took place on January 1, 2014. Those employees under the new system have just three years on" the careers, Smith said. "I think you're going to see the effects of the new pension system. It's no longer a benefit over the private sector/

"In the next three to five years, your going to have people under the new system with five to seven years (experience), and that's when I think they'll take a look at their careers" and decide if they want to stay in law enforcement, Smith said. "We have people who have (bachelor's and master's degrees) ... there are opportunities out there for them" in the private sector, Smith said.

It takes almost a year to completely train a road deputy to work independently, including academy training and the time the new recruit spends riding with a training officer.

"It probably takes five years to take an on-the-job experience to make a good, seasoned police officer," Smith said. "If (a deputy) decides to do something different, you've lost those years, (which) can't be replaced easily."

Of the hybrid pension plan, Smith said, "the biggest issue is there's no kind of (health) insurance worked into the 401(k) blend ... If they start at 25 (years-old) and retire after 25 years, they're looking for another career at 50" years old, he said.

Owensboro Police Department Chief Art Ealum did not decline to be interviewed, but never scheduled a time for the interview to take place. But Ealum said in an April interview that a starting city police officer makes $35,000, and entry level dispatchers at the county dispatcher center make $31,000 annually.

"If you have a calling to serve, it won't matter," Ealum said in that April interview. "But for people (who want) a six-figure income, you won't look at the police department."

There are also the pressures of law enforcement, which affects potential new recruits, said Trooper Corey King, public information officer for the Kentucky State Police in Henderson.

"We share the same stress (as other agencies), getting the younger generation interested in law enforcement as a career," King said. Media coverage of incidents and public protests involving officers, and incidents where officers have been targeted and killed simply for being in law enforcement, have discouraged some prospective applicants, King said.

"It's no surprise, in this day and age, that law enforcement is not the most popular job," King said. "... Some (officers) were shot and killed just for wearing a badge.

"Just by talking to some at career fairs, they understand the dangers and understand what law enforcement deal with," King said. "They shake my hand and thank me for the job (law enforcement is) doing, but they don't want to do the job themselves."

Like Smeathers at the county fire department, King said KSP doesn't have trouble retaining troopers once they joined the organization. Now, the challenge is getting people to apply.

It's a switch for KSP, which once received a large number of applicants without having to actively seek out potential applicants, King said.

"As an agency, we have to change strategy ... and get more into the recruitment mode than in years past," King said.

James Mayse, 270-691-7303, jmayse@messenger-inquirer.com, Twitter: @JamesMayse

___

(c)2017 the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Ky.)

Visit the Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, Ky.) at www.messenger-inquirer.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.