An Island-wide shortage of full-time police officers has rocked the Aquinnah department, forcing it to get creative to keep the ranks fully staffed.
For the first time, the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office will deploy special duty officers to the town on a rotational basis to help fill a 40-hour vacancy that arose following officer David Murphy’s retirement on April 17. The town waited two months for someone to apply for the job but received no submissions.
“I thought a little bit out of the box,” police Chief Randhi Belain said at a recent select board meeting.
Police chiefs across the Island said the move is not surprising, and may be a sign of things to come as police departments grapple with the Island’s dearth of affordable housing, a wave of retirements and the next generation’s waning interest in policing.
Dukes County Sheriff Robert Ogden said agreements like the one in Aquinnah are happening in several departments across the state, which are facing staff shortages.
“We’re not here to take over,” he said at the Aquinnah meeting. “We’re not here to assume complete policing obligations. We are here to merely support and benefit this fine town.”
Many of the Island’s police departments are understaffed. Tisbury has five full-time vacancies and both Edgartown and West Tisbury have one open position. Chilmark Police Chief Sean Slavin did not respond to requests for comment.
Oak Bluffs is fully-staffed, though police Chief Jonathon Searle said he worries about the future. He explained that many officers move off-Island because of the affordable housing crisis.
“A police officer potentially makes too much money to qualify for affordable housing but not enough money to buy a house,” Chief Searle said.
Four Oak Bluffs officers in recent years moved to the Hanson Police Department in Plymouth County where housing is more affordable, Chief Searle said. He explained that the officers who remain on-Island tend to go to whatever department offers the highest pay.
“The Island’s becoming competitive,” Chief Searle said.
West Tisbury Police Chief Matt Mincone said an officer he employed for the past eight years switched over to Edgartown last month. Many up-Island officers are beginning to seek larger departments that can offer higher compensation, he said.
“We’re developing officers, and then they’re leaving to head down-Island,” Chief Mincone said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen in the long run when there’s no one else from up-Island and we’re going down-Island to fill their ranks.”
He said the West Tisbury department had to reduce its services at Martha’s Vineyard Airport because the department is too understaffed. The airport requires two officers to screen flights and assist with Transportation Security Administration, and is now utilizing the sheriff’s office for coverage.
Chief Mincone said he’s concerned that the department’s remaining officers who are working overtime to compensate for the shortage will get burned out.
“I’m not worried about safety as an issue of working too much, because they can say no, right, but I’m just concerned about [when] the demands of the summer come around,” Chief Mincone said.
Edgartown police Chief Chris Dolby said his department has been understaffed for the past couple of years though the department is in good standing.
“We’re good,” he said. “Understaffed is just the status quo. [We] have enough to get the job done.”
The town prides itself on raising young cops, and Chief Dolby himself started with the Edgartown department when he was 18 years old working as a traffic officer. However, throughout his tenure he’s witnessed interest in the profession start to dwindle.
“For the longest time since I’ve been here, we’ve always had a line of people waiting for a position to open up,” Chief Dolby said. “That’s just not the case anymore.”
He said the most significant impact has been police reform that requires more training for young officers.
“When I started, we had summer police officers [who] came home from college and went through a week of training [where] you got a badge and a gun, and you’re an actual police officer with arrest powers,” Chief Dolby said. “Things change more and all for the better, as far as I’m concerned, but it has put a strain on us where we don’t have that feeder program now.”
Chief Dolby said the current feeder program is their community service officer positions, which are non-sworn and unarmed positions that give budding officers more responsibility than a traffic position, and help encourage them to pursue careers in law enforcement. He said the department has had great success with the program.
Many of the Island police chiefs have varying thoughts about regionalization as a long-term solution. The up-Island towns have regionalized their ambulance service, but police chiefs had some concerns about how a regional police force would work.
Chief Searle and Tisbury Police Chief Chris Habekost said the devil is in the details and explained that it would be difficult to determine who pays what for a regionalized police department. Chief Dolby had similar questions, but said he is focused on leading the Edgartown department the way it is.
Chief Belain plans to retire in June next year, and is concerned about the future of the Aquinnah department if it can’t find anyone to fill what could be two open positions out of the total four. He said a majority of the up-Island police officers are of retirement age, and the three departments should start having conversations about regionalizing.
Chief Mincone is not sure regionalization is the best solution for the Island. He said affordable housing would do more to help the departments while preserving the culture of each town.
“The second you take that individual patch off an officer’s arm, you take the culture of that town away with it,” Chief Mincone said.
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