Momentum - Business to Business Online Magazine MOMENTUM September 2018 | Page 18

Q: What is one immediate goal you have as chief? A: One of the things that we’ve done over the last several years is try to bolster our recruiting capabilities. We’ve done that through a number of different things. The first thing we started doing a few years back was launching an actual recruiting campaign; created a recruiting video, and started putting it on billboards. We really pushed out farther than we ever had before. From there, the next thing we started was creating a signing bonus. If someone was a police officer in another agency for three years or more, and came in here and successfully completed their field training program, they would get $2,500. When they finished their year of probation, they would get another $2,500. So it was a $5,000 signing bonus in the first 12 months just for coming in. The next thing we started supporting is we changed our local civil service rules which allowed certified officers from other agencies come in to test, they would end up automatically moving to the top of the list as certified peace officers with their test grades. Not that it really makes a tremendous difference, because typically we exhaust the list each time we do it anyway, but did that as well. We also started looking at why we were not getting as many people passing as possible that were taking the written test, as it’s written at a 12th grade education level; and is a reading comprehension test. I realize that some people have test anxiety and issues along that line and so we created a pre-test orientation where they can sign up and attend 6 weeks out before the test. They come in and the officers explain to them, beginning to end, what they can expect the day of the written test. They walk them through the process and tell them exactly what they need to look for and, at the end of that, they will answer any questions that they may have that may deal with the background issues that people have concerns with. Once that is complete, they are given the opportunity to go through the physical agility and are put through exactly what they do on the day of the test to see if there is anything that they can improve on over the next several weeks prior to the test. On the other side of things, we went from having 19 openings last year down to 8, and I now have a very large list to select from. I can fill those 8 and potentially hit into the +6 that council has allowed me to go over hiring for and I hope to be that by January. Now that we are able to fill these positions, I’m able to fill all the slots I had that were open in the different positions. That will include a crime analyst back into position, which will allow us to move forward with intelligence led policing. Those guys can use 17 MOMENTUM / September 2018 data-driven information so that we can send reports to our people in the field to know where it is that they need to be at the time to catch the bad guys in the hot spots that we’re dealing with. The gentleman moving in that position will start in September. He’s been going to training for the last two years, preparing and getting ready for that move. We are also putting together a drone program so we will have a fleet of drones that will be available to us once we get our policies in place and get our people trained. Q: Tell us what you like to do in your spare time A: I like to play golf, although I don’t play it too well. I’ve also just recently fostered and adopted a shelter dog, and am enjoying spending time with him. Thank you Chief Ratliff. DEVEREUX TEXAS SUPPORTS OUR FIRST RESPONDERS Rising waters, evacuations and damage — through it all, you stood with us. Thank you for going above and beyond to protect our community during Hurricane Harvey. WE WILL ALWAYS BE THANKFUL! 1150 Devereux Drive | League City, Texas 77573 | 281.335.1000 devereuxtx.org