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The Hancock Police Department will soon have an additional officer on the force.
There are currently seven full-time police officers in the department.
The city council voted to hire one more at their March meeting.
Part-time officers are used for about 3,000 hours a year, but qualified officers were getting hard to find.
Hancock City Manager Glenn Anderson said, “The pool of certified part-time officers available in this market area has diminished because less young people are going to the police academies and, two, there’s some shortages of full-time positions across Michigan.”
The cost to the city is estimated to be about $50,000 with the money coming from the general fund and includes some of the money already budgeted for part-time officers.
Having the police department adequately staffed is the only way to make sure the needs of the community are met.
Anderson said, “The only other alternative to not keeping a full-time department would be to cut back on some of the hours and not go 24 hours, which has not been an option for us.”
The city hopes to fill the position in the next couple of months.
