City Hires One WPD Officer, OKs 2 Probationary Officers
City Hires One WPD Officer, OKs 2 Probationary Officers
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
City Hires One WPD Officer, OKs 2 Probationary OfficersFinding men and women to serve in law enforcement isn’t as easy as it may once have been, but the Warsaw Police Department is getting closer to filling its roster after the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting Friday.
Mayor Joe Thallemer gave the formal oath of office to Lucas P. Vander Hart, who has completed his one-year probationary period, and the board approved Brianna Marganti and Megan Bortner as full-time probationary replacement police officers. The two women begin their duties Monday with a bi-weekly pay of $1,730.77 each.
After Vander Hart was sworn in, WPD Chief Scott Whitaker said, “For those who don’t know, Lucas is a Grace graduate. He happened to work for us part-time while at Grace during his last semester for parking enforcement. We knew we had a possible candidate, so we’re excited he came back to us. He actually left and took a law enforcement job in Tennessee and then came back and reapplied with us and has been here for a year.”
A news release issued by the WPD after the meeting states Bortner is a 2009 graduate of Valparaiso High School and a 2014 graduate of Ivy Tech where she received a degree in mortuary science. She also is enlisted in the U.S. Navy Reserves. Since 2017, she has been employed as a corporal for the Noble County Jail.
Marganti is a 2009 graduate and attended Purdue Northwest. She previously worked as an internet and phone consultant for Christenson Chevrolet in Highland. She will be a second-generation law enforcement officer, as her father recently retired from the Indiana Gaming Commission.
After the Board of Works meeting, Whitaker said Bortner and Marganti represent Warsaw Police Department's 37th and 38th officers.
“Currently, we’re approved in our budget for 40 officers, and we’re still reviewing applications. I think we’ll be doing some interviews either later this month or possibly January. And then we’ll start accepting applications again in January as we’re still trying to get ahead,” Whitaker said.
The release states WPD will be accepting applications effective Jan. 2.
“We still have (two) to fill, but we have another officer to enter the drop program. He intends to leave in May. And then we have two additional that are in the drop program that will be leaving the following year. At this rate, we just want to be prepared, so our intention is to continue to pursue hiring officers, at least getting them in a position to be hired,” Whitaker said.
He said it’s a months-long process to get officers hired, from the testing and interviewing to “ultimately, the process for pension, because you have to be medically and psychologically approved.”
Whitaker believes WPD needs more than 40 officers, but “we’ve had trouble actually being able to get to 40, and I think I’ve hit on that before. I didn’t ask for additional officers this year. I had approval for two the year prior, but it would be silly to ask for additional officers if I can’t even get our current roster filled.”
He said the process also takes so much from the WPD staff to train new officers.
“It’s not like we can just hire six people. We’ve got to be able to hire them in reasonable numbers in order to actually train them. The expectation is, really any more than two at one time is very difficult. We can train three at one time because that allows us to put one on each shift, but it takes its toll on our training officers because it’s very demanding because our field-training program lasts for approximately 13 to 15 weeks with every rotation and everything included. Twelve of those weeks, they’re with an officer in the car, and that’s very demanding because the officer has to be responsible for himself and also for the individual he’s training and making sure they’re hitting all of the necessary items of training,” Whitaker explained.
Two K-9 officers also are undergoing training right now, he said. They replace two that retired.
“So we have two officers with two canines. We haven’t introduced the canines yet because we want to make sure that we successfully complete the training program,” Whitaker said. “Sometimes there’s a failure to where the canines and officers don’t mesh or the officer decides it’s not a good fit.”
He said there’s been issues in the past at other law enforcement agencies where the dogs are too aggressive and the dogs will be around the officer’s family members so that’s a big consideration.
“I think we are about two-thirds of the way through the training, so we have a few more weeks,” Whitaker said, and then the WPD will announce the K-9 handlers and their new dogs.
