AURORA, Colo. — If they will not apply for paid job openings, how about just do not pay them?
The Aurora Police Department had 68 vacancies last month, with 11 officers leaving in May.
Aurora City Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky has an idea to fill some of the open spots: unpaid officers.
“There are a lot of people who, they can’t commit full-time,” Jurinsky said. “It’s no secret that our staffing levels are down pretty low, and if this is a way that we can keep officers from having to respond to things alone, this is a good way to do it.”
When Aurora City Council received an attrition update in June, the department had 10 fewer officers on the job since the start of the year.
“The idea has started because we want to, actually, take some of our firefighter medics and have them in with our SWAT team as tactical medics,” Jurinsky said.
There are currently 230 reserve officers throughout Colorado.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office has three that are POST (Peace Officer Standards and Training) certified. The sheriff’s office also has six medics from South Metro Fire Rescue that serve as reserve deputies with the SWAT team.
Reserve officers are armed.
If they are POST certified, they are just like other paid officers and deputies.
If they have reserve certification, their duties are limited and must be supervised by a POST certified officer or deputy.
“The overall goal is to strengthen the numbers in our police department,” Jurinsky said. “The Aurora Police Department is to come back to the public safety committee with a full plan. How this will look. How this will be rolled out. How we intend to find these officers.”
Aurora Police were scheduled to give a presentation at Monday night’s council study session.
“Any extra help would help with morale,” Jurinsky said.
At a public safety committee meeting earlier this month, Jurinsky heard from one of the police union president’s that morale was as low as he had seen it.
That led to an unfiltered response about the leadership at Aurora Police.
"If you are not as committed to rebuilding our image with the community, as you are to rebuilding the trust within the department, I don't care who it is in the chief's office, you can get the f--- out,” Jurinsky said.
On Monday, Next with Kyle Clark asked what that message was supposed to be.
“The message is that we very much need to continue to strengthen our relationship with the community and work to rebuild that, but it seems like the current interim chief is only focused on that and only focused on the appearance of the department and is not stabilizing the department and is not working on morale within the department,” Jurinsky said.
Interim police chief Art Acevedo was not available on Monday afternoon, but was supposed to be at the council meeting regarding the reserve police force on Monday night.
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