Recruiting Police in Golden Valley
“Staffing numbers are down, so we definitely are recruiting to get those numbers back up,” A new director is looking for new recruits. Director Virgil Green of the Golden Valley Police Department is looking to hire some new police officers, and he’s hoping to do so as quickly as possible, as he says, “Being new to the department, being new to the area, you know, we looked at how can we, kind of, you know, streamline that process, and not compromise anything, but how can we move the process along a little bit quicker to get people who need to go through background investigations, to kind of streamline that down, to get them in the door, because a lot of those people are probably going through the same process for other departments.”
One way for the department to meet the city’s law enforcement needs has been to expand the role of its Community Service Officers. This frees up the police officers for other duties, while providing the CSOs more experience, Director Green adds, “Typically they were kind of a, more of an administrative role, so now they’re out in the field working along side the officers, getting some of that hands on training, and so those officers, once they go through and meet the requirements for Minnesota post to be certified, now we’re able to offer them full-time positions within the police department.”
Ultimately Director Green says he would like to hire between six and eight officers by the end of the year, “That’s going to get our numbers back up to where they need to be, to where it doesn’t compromise any kind of services that we’re providing to the citizens of Golden Valley, and kind of take some of the stress off of some officers working some overtime, so everything looks very positive that we’re going to be able to meet those numbers before the end of the year.”
To apply with the Golden Valley Police Department go to http://www.GoldenValleyMN.gov under Jobs.
