Cobb County Outlines Police Officer Retention Plan

Cobb County government has released an outline of an officer training and retention plan they hope will allow the Cobb County Police Department to be fully staffed by Jan. 1, 2017.

The Marietta Daily Journal reports that the total cost of the project will be $66 million, and will necessitate the passage of the 2016 SPLOST by Cobb County voters during the November election.

According to the outline, it is estimated that the department will need to hire 232 new officers by the end of 2016 to have a fully staffed department. To achieve this goal, the department has bolstered its recruiting department and appeared at more community events in an attempt to hire more officers. The application and background check processes have also been streamlined.

To accommodate the new number of hires, the department will soon host four 20-week mandate training sessions a year, as opposed to the two sessions it currently provides. The sessions will take place in January, April, July, and October of each year, with the first of the new sessions being held on Oct. 13 of this year. The curriculum has also been refined to include more relevant training in a shorter period of time.

Retaining officers has become the key issue in staffing the department, the outline said. In order to combat the high rate of officer attrition, the department plans to begin an assigned vehicle program in March of next year.

Vehicles will be assigned to officers based on their seniority, disciplinary history, driving ability, and residency. It will take several years and 230 more police cars to fully outfit the department. The funds for the new police cars could come from the 2016 SPLOST one-cent sales tax on the November ballot.

A study is also underway which will determine the optimal level of educational incentive bonus pqy, which would reward officers for achieving post secondary degrees. Studies are also being conducted into retirement, medical benefits, and merit pay for officers.

The department also hopes to implement 10 hour shifts at precincts 3 and 1 by the end of 2016, and expanding the shift change to precincts 4 and 5 as more officers are hired. Ten hour shifts mean fewer shift changes and more overlap in officer coverage, increasing crime safety for citizens. Additionally, officers will see shift differential pay starting in Fiscal Year 2015.

Cobb police officers are also handling new technology, including new patrol rifles and replacement police vehicles. Detectives will soon have their hands on laptops, which will allow them to enter data at the crime scene as opposed to returning to the office to work on old desktop computers.

Majors will return to all county precincts, and efforts will be made to improve inter-departmental communications through newsletters, monthly update videos, biannual question and answer forums for employees, and biannual leadership forums.

$400,000 of surplus funds will be spent to complete construction and furnishing of a county facility that will serve as the new home of the department’s internal affairs unit. Currently, the unit is scattered throughout four different buildings.

If voters approve the 2016 SPLOST, the department will build a new headquarters and evidence unit building for $16 million, build a new shared training facility for $23.3 million, repair and upgrade precinct buildings for $2.25 million, purchase and equip new crime scene processing vehicles and equipment for $102,113, and create a sixth precinct to cover northeast Cobb for $6 million.

“The recruitment, hiring, training, and retention of well qualified and experienced personnel are crucial to providing the high level of police services the citizens of Cobb County have come to expect. The Cobb County Police Department has always had a reputation of being the best and this plan will help us maintain that status,” the outline says.

Both the full retention plan and a chart detailing the timeline of the plan’s implementation can be read below.

Police Improvement Plan Final Gantt Chart

Police Improvement Plan Final PDF