Budget cuts at nearly every department in the state have caused a ripple effect, making it very difficult for new officers to land a full time job.
Officer David Price has a part time job in the Village of Sand Lake, the Village of Sparta, two different security jobs and lives with his parents in Grand Rapids. He also makes little more than $10-$15 with no benefits.
“I considered waiting a long time until things were different, there were more jobs,” said Price, speaking about the time before he got the break in Sand Lake. “Then this opportunity came up and I went for it.”
When a recruit graduates from the police academy, they have one year to get a job. If they don’t, they have to pay their own way to re-certify.
“I believe the course was $1,200,” said Price. “Then you’ve got to pay for your own lodging and food while you’re out there, so it wound up costing me about $1,500.”
It’s a common story across Michigan, especially when so many cities have cut police jobs in the last decade.
David Harvey is the director of MCOLES, the Michigan Commission on Law Enforcement Standards. He said the state has lost more than 3,000 cop jobs since 2001. Yet, the police academies are still going strong.
Harvey said more than 400 recruits graduate each year from Michigan’s 19 police academies, leaving them with only a 47-percent placement rate.
“Some may say that’s too many if there’s no jobs,” said Harvey.
And Harvey points out that 59 percent of Michigan’s police officers over the age of 40.
Employers like Chief Andrew Milanowski in Sparta say the competition is fierce.
“Just about every day a resume is coming in,” said Milanowski.
His town is treated like a launching pad by many young officers, while he pays for it. Things like taser and radar training aren’t taught at the academy.
“You put that money into them to train them and everything,” said Milanowski. “And when the economy’s good, within 5 or 6 months, most of the time they’re gone.”
Several states have a statewide academy for all departments; The number of seats in the academy correlates to the number of jobs available. Harvey said Michigan’s model works too, especially in the next 10 to 15 years when the older officers start to retire.
“So you have a brain-drain, you have an age drain, an experience drain, with nobody on the bottom end replacing them,” said Harvey. “So you need an immediate replacement for those people to come in.”
Think you want to be a police officer in Michigan? Get ready for a tough road.
As law enforcement jobs statewide have shrunk, it's made job hunting for new recruits very difficult as Michigan's 19 police academies are still cranking out graduates.
Some officers go more than a year before their first job, while they have to spend thousands to keep their certification intact.
In a special report tonight at 10:00, we'll profile some officers in West Michigan struggling to get by and get some answers about how the system could be fixed.
