Norfolk police looking to fill 8 officer positions

NORFOLK, Neb. (KCAU) – Police departments nationwide have been seeing a lack of recruits in recent years, but one Siouxland department has been trying to fill empty spots since 2017.

The Norfolk Police Division has been looking to fill eight officer positions due to members retiring or changing career paths.

While their most recent recruit took a job at another department only days after finishing their training with Norfolk, the division’s police chief said that with the statewide officer shortage, these types of transfers are not uncommon.

“Norfolk spends a lot of time and effort in training our officers before, during, and after the police academy,” Norfolk Police Chief Donald Miller said. “As part of that, they end up being really good candidates for other communities because we hire great people, we do a lot in training and they make great candidates for these other big agencies and they can go someplace. Recently, with everybody being short, circumstances come up where people find a different department is a better fit for their skill sets, their interests, whatever, then people end up moving around a little bit.”

While the division lacks 20% of a full staff, leaders are working to make officer positions more attractive to applicants.

“Recognizing there were struggles, we along with other law enforcement agencies across the area looked at adjusting pay,” Miller said. “We started a master police officer position, we have night shift differentials. We’ve had uniform changes. We’ve worked with the officers and talked to them about what are the things that they want to do at their job.”

Miller said they have also expanded their community service officer positions to spark community member interest in law enforcement.

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