Suburban Minnesota police departments offer bonuses to recruit and retain officers

Twin Cities suburban police departments are increasingly dangling valuable hiring incentives in front of police officers to fill positions in a highly competitive job market.

From Roseville to Apple Valley, the bonuses — which range from $1,500 to $10,000 — are being offered to new police officers and experienced officers in other departments if they make the move to a new department. Incentives are also being used to retain existing officers.

"We've seen a lot of [incentives] and it's only picking up steam," said Jim Mortenson, executive director of Law Enforcement Labor Services, which works with unions to negotiate hundreds of contracts at Minnesota law enforcement agencies. "They have to do something to lure candidates."

Mortenson said just 538 peace officers received their Peace Officer Standards and Training license in 2021. The Minnesota State Patrol, the Minneapolis Police Department and the St. Paul PoliceDepartment combined now have 500 vacancies in their departments.

That's not counting numerous openings across the state's 414 other law enforcement agencies, he said.

Officer compensation, through pay or bonuses, has come up in Minneapolis and St. Paul, too.

A tentative contract agreement reached this month with the Minneapolis Police Department, still pending City Council approval, includes $7,000 payments for officers.

In St. Paul, the police chief recently wrote a letter to the mayor saying the department is losing cops to suburban departments offering better pay, but no incentives are proposed there.

"You can see what's happening now," Mortenson said of the incentives. "We're basically robbing Peter to pay Paul."

The average pay for a patrol officer in Minnesota cities with populations between 25,000 and 125,000 people is $64,000 to start and tops out at $94,000, Mortenson said, though there are eight to 10 ranks above patrol officers.

There just aren't enough candidates to fill the many openings, Mortenson said.

Cara Garrett, academic dean at Hennepin County Technical College, said enrollment in the college's program that covers some of the courses students need to become police officers dropped from 301 two years ago to 226 students this academic year.

'As enticing as possible'

Deputy Chief Joe Adams of the Roseville Police Department called the decline in candidates "drastic," and said, "We want to make [the job] as enticing as possible."

So pending City Council approval Monday, Roseville will begin offering a bonus of $5,000 for new officers and $10,000 for officers with at least one year of experience elsewhere. The bonus for officers with experience was previously $5,000 and began in 2019 when the department projected future hiring and retention issues, Adams said.

The department was also the first in the state to pay officers coming in for their years of experience elsewhere rather than starting them at the bottom of the pay scale, Adams said.

In Brooklyn Center, Cmdr. Garett Flesland said the department offers a $6,000 "lateral transfer bonus" for officers with at least one year of employment elsewhere. They also provide 40 hours of sick time and 40 hours of vacation when the person begins work, he said, rather than starting them at zero.

"We're like a lot of departments that are trying to find the best possible candidates and it appears that the number of qualified candidates has gone down in recent years," he said.

Capt. Nick Francis of the Apple Valley Police Department said the department started a new annual $1,500 bonus in January aimed at retaining employees. The bonus is prorated over 26 pay periods, and officers get it as long as they stay.

"It's just an incentive for new folks to come on and have a little bit more money available to them and, as importantly, try to retain our folks that may not be quite to retirement age," he said.

The department has lost some officers recently who weren't yet of retirement age. They left the profession or went to work for a state agency, he said.

Is the approach working?

Adams said he isn't sure if the bonus for newly minted officers is effective yet, since the Roseville department just began a new round of interviews. But it has already seen success luring officers from elsewhere by bringing them in with pay that reflects their experience, plus the $5,000 bonus, he said.

"I don't know of any other agency that has hired as many laterals," he said, noting candidates applied from across the metro and California, Washington and Michigan.

Bringing in experienced officers is helpful because they're already trained, he said.

"If we can hire a trained, proven officer, even if it's at an elevated hiring rate, even if it is with a bonus, it's going to add substantially more in experience and really shield us from liability from an officer that doesn't have experience," he said.

Brooklyn Center has hired six officers from other departments since November, which shows the bonuses are working, Flesland said.

Competition is tough, he said, because every department is hiring from the same pool. Officers have to be licensed through the state and attend accredited law enforcement programs.

Francis, of the Apple Valley department, noted some agencies also offer incentives like tuition reimbursement and pay increases based on education, and they're becoming more popular.

"For us, it's a collective interest for the city, the police command staff, the union and all the members of the department ... to be fully staffed," Francis said.