Paid to train: recruits learn and earn

Chief says the process helps lure good officers

May 4, 2008

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

HICKORY - Anitra Maldonado was looking for a career change.

She had been working as a medical assistant for several years, but after returning from a stint in Kuwait with the Navy Reserves, the 31-year-old mother wanted to do something new.

Police work had always intrigued her, she said, but that required taking the basic law enforcement training course, which runs more than eight hours a day for four months. With three kids younger than 10, working a full-time job and being a full-time student just wasn't going to happen, she said.

But then, Maldonado heard that the Hickory Police Department was looking to recruit officers and would be willing to pay not just for the training course but a salary, too.

Maldonado applied - a lengthy process that includes a physical fitness test, drug screening, background check, polygraph and psychological assessment. When she graduates this month, she will already be a paid member of the Hickory police.

Covering the salaries for a select number of recruits to go through law enforcement training is one way the Hickory Police Department is expanding its applicant base in hopes of getting a more diverse pool of potential officers.

Five years ago, said Chief Tom Adkins, the Police Department was having a difficult time finding qualified applicants and needed an incentive to get people with life experience to join the force.

The problem, he said, is that those people often had families and couldn't afford to be out of work while they went through training.

So, in 2005, the Hickory Police Department decided to offer a full-time salary - reduced by 15 percent off the starting pay of about $30,000 a year - to one officer to go through the training and then join the force after graduation.

In the years since, Adkins said, the department has expanded the program and now pays for six recruits to go through training and guarantees them, if they do well, a job on patrol.

Capt. Jay Jackson, who oversees Hickory's Support Services division, said paying recruits a salary during training allows the department to be more competitive with other law enforcement agencies and encourages more qualified people to apply.

"When we open it up, we can get 60 applicants," he said. "And because of that ... we're finding people with college degrees who want to make a career change. This is the only way they could afford to do it."

The process starts with an intense physical fitness test to assess whether the applicant is able to do everything that would be required of a patrol officer.

If they can't pass the test - which includes running, sit-ups and pushups, among other things - they can't advance in the application process, said Sgt. Tom Freeman, who picks the recruits the Police Department will pay during training.

Maldonado was one of six recruits hired by the Hickory police at the beginning of the year and has since been taking the basic law enforcement classes at Western Piedmont Community College.

She graduates May 16, and by the end of the month will be patrolling Hickory's streets.

"It's a great opportunity for education and advancement," she said. "And that extra security of already having a job is nice, too."

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