Swampscott Launches New Police Officer Hiring Campaign

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — After recent extending hiring campaigns failed to produce sufficient candidates to fill the growing vacancies in the Swampscott Police Department, Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald pledged to work with Chief Ruben Quesada to revamp the process at a Select Board meeting earlier this month.

A week later, the department on Thursday launched a new public hiring campaign aimed at recruiting entry-level officers, academy-trained officers and those looking for a lateral transfer.

The "BE THE CHANGE. Community. Leadership. Integrity." campaign advertises competitive pay, equal opportunity, a supportive team, great benefits, education incentives, generous PTO, overtime and detail opportunities.

Potential candidates are encouraged to go here to learn more about the openings and register for an upcoming entry exam, or email SPDjobs@swampscottpolice.com.

Fitzgerald said the last hiring campaign resulted in only one conditional offer being made out of the 65 candidates for the job. This was after Union President Kevin Reen recently sent an open letter to the board requesting a public summit to discuss what he called a hiring "crisis" in the department.

"We are going to think anew about how we are moving forward with hiring — the timelines just don't work — and we really have some great ideas about how to expedite the timeline and move forward in addressing some of those critical staffing issues," Fitzgerald told the Select Board.

Swampscott and the police and fire unions reached an agreement to drop out of the civil service system in 2021 as a way to broaden the hiring pool and bring more diversity to the department. Yet, hiring from outside of the traditional testing system has proved challenging despite efforts to recruit nationally.

Fitzgerald said the town wants to work with the police union and "make sure that everyone has a chance to play a role" and agreed that "we need to do something different."

"We cannot continue to hire police officers the same way that we have in the past," Fitzgerald allowed. "It just doesn't work. It's not working."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)