COLORADO, USA — In a matter of two months, every officer in two small Colorado police departments resigned, leaving the communities scrambling.
Last week, Marshal Fine-Loven, the leader and last remaining member of the Nederland Police Department in Boulder County, announced her resignation set for the end of September. The town of Nederland said it is committed to keeping its department going and will search for an interim Marshal while seeking additional help from the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office.
In July, the entire three-member Springfield Police Department in southern Colorado resigned.
Springfield’s Mayor Tyler Gibson told 9NEWS Wednesday that town leaders are in the process of interviewing several candidates for police chief and could have a new chief in place in the next few weeks. In the meantime, the city is being patrolled by the Baca County Sheriff’s Office.
Gibson blamed a multitude of factors for his town’s troubles recruiting police officers. He said its hard to pay candidates a competitive salary and hard to get them to commit to coming to a remote small town like Springfield. Gibson also said current attitudes towards policing are driving people away from the profession.
Louisville Police Chief Dave Hayes, who leads the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, told 9NEWS he’d had several conversations with Nederland’s police leadership over the past few months.
“The town was not able to pay Denver area salaries. Combining that with the lack of housing in Nederland,” Hayes said.
Hayes said in general, salaries have been a sore spot in recruitment efforts, as it continues to cost more and more to live in a state like Colorado, especially in the metro Denver area. He said more departments have had to offer more benefits to get people on board for the job, including housing allotments and educational reimbursements. Hayes said it can cost an individual up to $10,000 to attend the police academy on their own.
Hayes also said departments are figuring out how to do more duties with fewer resources and adapting. He suggested some communities may discuss shifting police away from investigating minor traffic crashes and figuring out better solutions for handling mounting mental health calls.
Hayes said even with so many positions open in major metropolitan police departments, many getting into law enforcement should consider working in smaller departments where experience is abundant.
“It’s a chance to get into police work and do some real community policing where you may be one of maybe two on duty… and when you do get a call…absent a real serious call in a sex assault or a homicide…chances are you’re going to work that case from the beginning to the end,” he said.