Belpre City Council votes on legislation aiming to help police recruitment

BELPRE, Ohio (WTAP) - Belpre City Council passed the first reading of legislation that would extend the age range the police department can hire from.

More specifically, it would raise the maximum age from 40 to 50. Chief Stump explained that this would open up the hiring pool to retiring officers.

Hiring officers has become a struggle nationwide.

Stump said that the hiring limit used to be 35 then was raised to 40, but that extension hasn’t helped enough.

Stump has seen the hiring pool shrink dramatically since he first joined the force.

“In the early 2000′s, when I first tested for Belpre, we had about 70 candidates. Now we’re seeing a candidate pool whenever we put out an application list, if anybody applies, we’ve not had more than five people apply for one job,” he said.

Stump added that, although the police department is only down one position, because it’s such a small department, it makes a difference.

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