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Spencer Police Chief Expresses Concern Over Staffing Levels

October 08, 2024 Steve Schwaller

(Spencer)– Spencer Police Chief Mark Warburton is expressing concern over staffing levels in his department. Warburton told the city council Monday filling positions is becoming more and more difficult as fewer people are opting to go into the law enforcement profession…

“And the reason I say this is we’re down three officers now; we have the potential of losing two more here in December, if not January, to the State Patrol. That means we’ll be down five officers. That’s 25 percent of the department. When that happens, a lot of things do not get done any more. So we’re going to have to backfill our patrol with taking out investigations. We may possibly have to lose our school resource officer and pull him out of the school and bring him back to patrol, it takes such a long time to do that. So wish me luck on a couple of people here in the co-op that we have and that we can try to get some of these people hired. Just know that that’s coming.”

Interim City Manager Kevin Robinson told the council they’re in the process of reviewing some possible incentives for hiring new and experienced officers. He says they’ll likely be bringing something to the council soon.

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