Salinas police hope to be fully staffed by 2018

Progress is being made in the efforts to fully-staff the Salinas Police Department. The department has been short of officers for several years , but that is on track to change.

Right now Salinas police have 151 officers on the payroll — just 21 officers shy of being fully staffed. That’s a big jump from the 104 officers they had back in 2016. The department is averaging about 60 applicants every two months, but according to the assistant chief, not all of them are right for SPD.

“We might have 60 candidates to put in, but there will only be one qualified candidate. Were not going to lower our standards just hire anyone. We need to hire someone that’s going to fit the diversified community we have, life experience. But again sometimes it takes going through 60 applications to find that one applicant,” said SPD Assistant Chief Manuel Martinez.

In 2017 Salinas added 22 new officers, so if they did that again this year, they would reach full strength. Martinez said the only thing that would keep that from happening would be retirements at the end of the year.

There are a few things this steady increase can be contributed to. They have increased their advertising and added one full time recruiting officer. Also, they’re Reaching out more to military.
A recruiter will head down to Twentynine Palms this month.