Update June 7
New- like mike said, he will have to cycle this through a few committees to figure out what is going on and fix it. This is a emergency, the town is in a extraordinary fragile state. The remaining cops know how untrustworthy the chief is and the selectman. We could have 1, 2 or 3 cops emediately resign. If I was a chief, I figure out what kind of bonus would it take to keep the rest of the cops working for the next year and make the cops sign a contract. Money is the only thing that is going to work now we dug the hole so deep. More sweet words with nothing to show for it, is just going to piss them all off more.
Personally I think the Hinsdale select-people hate the police department...they are sabotaging public safety and their aim is to keep the police as weak as possible and in a total state of object chaos. This is a policy of the selectman's office maliciously and intentionally weakening the police department for a unseen agenda.
Come on, why hasn't the selectman's office been keeping up to the conditions of the Hinsdale police department? It is the most important office the Selectman have. This has been going on for years. And the selectman just discovered it. What kind of show you got going on here!!!
Update
There is no doubt I agitated to Darcy and to selective police officers about the funding problems surrounding the police department. I set this meeting in motion. I even advocated to Darcy the police department is in such bad shape they need to be put into state receivership or in direct supervision. When all is said and done, this problem fixed, we will discover this shortage in police funding comes from a agenda of the selectman. In hindsight, there never was a legitimate reason for this shortage of police funding.
Rereading this, basically it is a revolt by the police force against police managnement and the selectman.
***As far as the police chief, if he don't have the gravitas to get the selectmen to pay the police officers what they are worth and keeping the police force in tip top shape, then the police chief should have long ago resigned on conscience. There is something wrong with the police chief if he is not independent from the selectmen and act on in a way that = is in the best interest of the police force and the community they serve
And lets face it, what legitimate company would want to move to a small community with systemic and uncontrollable police department problems. An area with a weak and non functioning police department just draws the scumbags of the earth drug dealers and other corrupt entities to the poorly policed area. Then the businesses start to leave for greener pastures and new ones won't move in. It is a police department and town's revenues death spiral. How much town's revenues have we lost with this weak and dysfunctional police department so far? Much worst yet, how much town revenues are going to be lost in the future with a ever declining police force. We are just screaming for all the scumbags to move to Hinsdale. Then the housing property values decline, taxes increase, people move out...then we get into these repeating cycles of lost tax revenues declines, decreasing housing values and the reputation of the town in a continuous decline.
Who is to say the great exodus of homeowners and renters out of town isn't about the lawlessness within the town? They don't want to deal with dangerous racism at the schools and the sense they are unsafe on our streets. Dead bodies all over the place. Who is to say this is about taxes, not safety and security in the street with a high performance police department.
The police chief should be fired emediately for allowing his police department to get into this shape. You see the black hole we are in? Lets say he quits or gets fired, who is going to replace him? What kind of hot shot police official would want become our police chief in the horrible shape of the police department and selectman. You'd have to be insane to come to work as the police chief in this town. You got to know the pay sucks. Are we just stuck with this guy and his philosophy??? You are not going to get a replacement for months. The next guy or lady police chief then is going to have less police quality than a MacDonald's table washer. Just like the regular police offers.
Ok, say you have a police officer taking shortcuts or is just plain lazy, not the proper alignment to be a good officer? Are you going to fire him on a hint of a improper police alignment like you should? The chief is going to weigh the consequences of having three or two officers on the force against the possibility of a loose cannon police officer on the force. Sometimes a warm body is better than none. It is the slippery slope. You are effectively giving too much power to the bottom of the barrel police officers. The officers are going to sense they are not being managed and watched as they should. Then they are going to takes chances and do stuff they normally won't do. It usually ends up as a runaway police department.
So in recent times we had the killing and murdering of three people in Hinsdale and the potential high felony crimes in the grammar school.
We are right in the middle of a heroin apocalypse and the dealers are in control of our town.
Think about this. This is a free market state, so they say. The Hinsdale police department just can't pay the going market rate for a police officer. And we got weak police departments all over the place. And you know for a fact, with this horrible pay, we are getting the bottom of the barrel quality with the police officers. Honestly, you get what you pay for. Basically in a humongous crisis like this, that have been for many years, you got to know training and police career development goes right out the door (It is just day to day survival, and this makes the officers just want to leave.) It is just too expensive.
Do you get it, the Brattleboro rag and all of the locale newspapers have been throwing at us for many years now, that the general poor economic conditions of the community is causing the low pay for the police officers and the dysfunction of the police departments. All you are hearing about this is from the selectmen and the police department in the newspapers. These police and town officials for their own self interest have been saying for many years now, the problems are intractable and unsolvable through the newspapers. Basically there is no hope for your community, just like our newspapers. It is mono thinking by everyone. Nobody talks about a solution to this. It is just hopeless.
Posted Wednesday, June 5, 2019 7:51 pm
By Bob Audette, Brattleboro Reformer
HINSDALE, N.H. — The town of Hinsdale has 10 slots designated for its police department, counting the chief of police. But at this moment, it only has four officers and its chief.
"Our department is currently in crisis mode," said Corp. Adam Belville, reading from a statement during the Monday evening meeting of the Hinsdale Board of Selectmen. "Often times there is only one officer working at a time who is responsible for responding to calls and handling investigations."
After reading from his statement, Belville went on to describe the situation as "a boiling point."
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the best interests of the town and department in mind," said Belville, who noted many small-town departments get rookie cops who stay on board for a year or two for experience before hopping to a bigger city with better pay.
All four officers on the town's payroll went to Monday night's meeting, but Chief Todd Faulkner stayed away.
"They didn't tell the board anything that I haven't told the board before," said Faulkner, and most of that is about how much pay he can offer new recruits to the department.
"Every year I have expressed to the town that pay is an issue," said Faulkner. "I am sympathetic about how the budget works and how much the people of Hinsdale are paying in taxes, but the hiring pool that's out there is not sustainable and my officers will do what's right for them and their families, regardless of how dedicated they might be to Hinsdale."
Starting pay in Hinsdale is about $19 an hour, or $39,520 a year, for applicants with no certification. With prior experience, the starting pay is a little less than $22 an hour, or about $45,760 a year.
"Do you feel one of the biggest factors in the retention of officers has to do with pay?" asked Selectmen Mike Carrier during the Monday night meeting. Carrier himself is a police officer with the Winchester Police Department and a former member of both the Hinsdale and Brattleboro police departments.
Belville said there are a lot of factors weighing against Hinsdale and other small-town police departments, but pay is one of the major factors.
"Larger departments ... are definitely dangling the pay in front of them," he said. In addition, he noted, officers can work at a larger department and have a smaller caseload because there are more officers on staff.
Sgt. Joshua Murray put it more bluntly.
"Would you go to the town that pays less to do more or go to the town that pays you more to do less?" asked Murray.
Up until about two years ago, said Faulkner, the town guaranteed all of its employees a 3 percent pay raise each year, dependent on a performance review, in addition to cost-of-living increases, amounting to about 5 percent a year.
The town went to performance-based pay raises for two years, he said, but this year has placed a freeze on all pay raises.
The Hinsdale police budget for fiscal year 2019, which ends June 30, is $1,390,493.
Both Belville and Faulkner acknowledged that all the departments in the region are fighting over the best applicants, but only the ones, like Keene, that offer a better starting pay, are winning.
The Keene Police Department is currently hiring, with a starting pay between $43,992 and $55,681, depending no experience.
Pay in nearby Winchester is similar to what is offered in Hinsdale, said Chief Mike Tollett, who has eight full-time slots, counting himself, all of which are filled. However, noted Tollett, one of his officers is leaving on Saturday. Pay starts at about $19 an hour for non-certified officers and $21 to $22 per hour depending on experience.
"Winchester is horrible with pay," said Tollett. And that's not just in his department. "No town employees get annual raises or cost of living increases."
In the past, said Tollett, the way to get a pay raise in the Winchester Police Department was to get promoted.
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"I try to look for folks who are going to fit in the department and who have a sense of loyalty," he said.
He also asks new hires to sign a contract, promising they will stay for three years, but even that doesn't guarantee an officer will stay the full three years.
"Other departments such as in Keene and Swanzey will buy out the contract," said Tollett. "Recently, Swanzey paid Winchester $16,000 to buy out a contract."
Chesterfield, which offers a slightly higher introductory pay rate, also has no openings, said Chief Duane Chickering.
"We have five full-time officers, including myself, and three part-time officers," he said.
Starting pay for non-certified officers in Chesterfield is $21.14 and $21.92 for certified officers. Chesterfield also has eight pay steps for its officers, meaning they can earn up to $27.22 an hour.
"Even though we are fully staffed, we are always looking," said Chickering, who noted during the last hiring process he received more than 50 applications, of which only three who passed all the tests.
Chesterfield doesn't require that its new hires sign a contract, but they must live in town, he said.
"If you live in the town, you have a vested interest," said Chickering, who noted two of his current officers are approaching their three-year mark, and their experience makes them a valuable asset to any department.
"Outside agencies are salivating over the amount of work we put into our officers," he said.
Belville noted that between March and May of this year, the Hinsdale Police Department received nearly 40 resumes.
"Only 10 applicants showed up ... to begin the hiring process," he said. "Of those applicants, the majority couldn't pass the physical fitness test. The ones who could, either couldn't pass the next step i the hiring process or backed out altogether."
"Recruitment is the same for us as for everybody else," said Tollett. "We get applications. We set up physical fitness tests. Some don't show up and some don't pass the test."
Faulkner said that the officers who have remained on staff in Hinsdale have done so because they are dedicated to the town and to its police department. But that dedication is no match for better pay somewhere else when someone's life situation changes.
"I had an officer leave because he wanted to start a family and buy a house," he said. "You can't do that on the pay we offer. Any one of my current officers could walk away today for the same reason."
"We have a great group of people now who work well together," said Belville during the Monday night meeting. "The downside is, we are getting absolutely swamped with calls."
According to numbers compiled by Jerod Tier, a Hinsdale resident, seven officers responded to or worked 6,842 incidents, or 977 incidents per officer.
If the same call volume holds steady in 2019, that's 1,710 incidents per each of the department's four officers, not counting the chief, who said he is currently working 20 cases he would normally assign to a detective.
"Everyone is tired," said Faulkner.
"All of the town departments are feeling the same issue," said board member Bernie Rideout.
Board Chairman Mike Darcy thanked Belville and the other officers for bringing the situation to their attention and promised they would "start working on it" as soon as possible.
