LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville Metro Police Chief Paul Humphrey said the next class of recruits will be the largest the department has had in years.
The next recruit class will have 33 people, and while Humphrey said that’s trending in the right direction, it still fell a bit short of his goal to graduate three 48-person classes every year.
“We want to point out applications are up across board,” Humphrey said Thursday. “The new recruit class chosen yesterday will have 33 people, the largest class in a couple of years.”
LMPD leaders said the department is still short about 300 officers, but recruitment is trending up. Humphrey said the newest class graduating Friday at Southeast Christian Church has 13 people, but there’s still a ways to go for the department to reach its goal.
“The applicant pool is not as strong as we want it to be,” he said. “I don’t that is unique to LMPD.”
Officers are frequently attending college fairs and working with Fort Knox for a statewide military-to-law-enforcement pipeline program to get more people on the force. And they’re seeing some success.
“I think the environment around policing has changed,” Humphrey said. “The level of negativity that has been sent our way is starting to wain.”
In the first year, officers make about $55,000, Humphrey said. That pay bumps up to about $75,000 second year.
“If we want to get this work done, we need to have not just number of people but the right people,” Humphrey said.
The chief said fewer officers leaving and more officers returning from retirement has helped with retention and recruitment.
“This job is not easy,” he said. “We can’t make it easy but we can make people very proud of where they work.”
