PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Philadelphia Police Department and its 911 dispatch center are short-staffed, and commanders are pushing for a few good women and men to apply.
The department has about 6,100 officers, commanders and civilians, but it is authorized to employ nearly 300 more. Earlier this week, Mayor Jim Kenney said more officers are retiring or leaving.
“It’s a hard job and it’s been an extremely hard job over the last year and half, and as you have seen in all law enforcement, [they] are getting burned out,” he said.
Related
City Council mandated police recruits to live in Philadelphia for a year before being hired. But it’s not just the police — there are fewer and fewer dispatchers in the city’s 911 center. Callers often hear busy signals, or the phone just continues to ring.
“It doesn’t mean they will not get answered, it just means they may have a few more rings than we would like for them to have,” said Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw. “It is something we are diligently working on to ensure our response times are what they should be.”
She said they have had to make dispatchers work mandatory overtime because they don’t have enough people to fill the positions.
“There is a high number of single parents who work there, but when you compel staff to work a lot of mandatory overtime during a pandemic, professionally, it makes it very difficult for people to manage their personal lives as well,” she noted.
They are making do with training other civilian employees and starting a new training class soon, though Outlaw admitted it is hard to recruit potential employees when the starting salary is $35,743.
Related
“We believe that if we could increase the compensation for entry-level dispatcher, that’s a start,” she added. “Obviously that is something that we have been advocating for; budget has been a huge topic. Also, advocating for restoring our authorized strength.”
The starting salary for police officer recruits is $56,000.
People who are interested in the jobs can visit JoinPhillyPD.com for more information.