With increasingly competitive pay for law enforcement in the area, Shenandoah Police Chief Troye Dunlap proposed allowing officers to take home their patrol vehicles as an incentive for them to stay with the force.

What’s happening?

Dunlap spoke to the Shenandoah City Council on April 23 regarding the department’s concerns about losing officers to better pay or more incentives in nearby cities.

The following is the base hourly pay for law enforcement agencies around Shenandoah:“The reason why this is so significant is because we’ve had four officers apply to DPS, and two of them are in the background [check] process. I can't afford to lose four guys, especially when it takes us nine months to fill one open spot,” Dunlap said.

Digging deeper

Officers were previously sharing a police vehicle in an arrangement where one would use it in the morning shift and the other in the evening shift, Dunlap said. In November, the department shifted to allowing one officer to one individual car, which has helped maintenance of the vehicles, he said.

Dunlap said officers have taken more responsibility of their vehicles as they are the ones taking care of them.

What they’re saying

• “This is a nationwide problem, and as you can see we’re falling behind so we have to do something," Dunlap said.
• “We can’t scrape when it comes to public safety; if we have to address this come budget time and if the police department needs an increase, we should consider an increase to the budget to accommodate the retention and recruitment of officers,” Mayor John Escoto said.
• “As the city looks at the cost of the asset that we provide which has gone up from $60,000 to near $100,000 a unit [per vehicle] and if we keep them going with extra mileage, use, [etc.] I can't see that much of the savings,” council member Charlie Bradt said.

What’s next

Dunlap said he will provide more information to the council in three months when the city discusses its budget.