Longwood University Police Department (LUPD) is in the process of filling five police officer positions and three communication positions since before the vice presidential debate on Oct. 4.
“That’s a significant shortfall but our organization is as such talented and the commitment of our staff is that everyone picks it up,” said Col. Bob Beach, chief of LUPD.
In order to accommodate for the overtime by the remaining officers, the overtime budget is considered to be over budget.
“That’s the nature of what you do 24 hours a day seven days a week, you take responsibility when you have shortness of staff you have to make it up someplace, we will make it up but obviously, we have salary savings from the vacancies positions that will be able to cover the shortage in the budget but we are on our way to recover that” said Beach.
Two students have recently completed the sixth-month academy process and are now in the midst of their 13-week training process. Both students will join LUPD after completion, which is expected to be in three to four weeks, according to Beach.
“That (the two additions) will put two of those five spots back on the street,” said Beach.
“It is not uncommon for officers from local sheriff departments to work for LUPD as needed. Currently qualified police officers are in demand and it is a competitive market for their services,” said Dr. Tim Pierson, vice president of student affairs.
In addition, two more students are expected to graduate from the academy in June 2017 that will begin their 13-week residential after that to work towards filling those positions, according to Beach.
“That’ll help us, but then we just had an officer who is going to resign and go work for another department and that’ll drop us (LUPD) back one then that would leave us with two vacancies and we plan on filling those vacancies and putting those people if they need to go to the academy in July,” said Beach.
There have been two offers made to fill the communication positions.
“We (LUPD) have to finish the background investigation before we can make that final but that’s in process as we speak,” said Beach.
“LUPD thoroughly screens applicants to ensure that we are only hiring qualified individuals who will be a good fit for the Longwood community,” said Pierson.
The response time has remained steady throughout the shortfall with an average of three minutes, according to Beach.
“We (LUPD) have not missed any events…so on average for 17-18,000 calls a year I’m happy with that,” said Beach.
“While we are not currently at full-staff in LUPD rest assured that all shifts are fully covered by qualified officers,” said Pierson.
The cause of the shortfall is believed to be other job opportunities, according to Beach.
“People move on for a number of different reasons most of our losses are not due to salary or benefits it's either spouses move or new jobs or things like that,” said Beach.
When asked if campus has been notified of this situation Beach responded: “We (LUPD) have been very open about our shortfall and officer vacancies, anytime anybody asked we have been very open about it,” said Beach.
“It’s not that the information is not there it’s that people are just not receiving it … campus should have known it (about shortfall) we have been very open about it I’m not certain who would have said that,” said Beach.
Beach added that students could bring their concerns and learn about issues around campus at Coffee with the Chief that is held every month.
