‘It’s hard to keep people’: Albia struggles to staff police force

By Amanda Rooker

Click here for updates on this story

    ALBIA, Iowa (KCCI) — Albia’s six-person police department will soon dwindle down to a staff of three officers. The police chief and two other members have submitted their resignations, citing concerns over pay, according to Albia Mayor Richard Clark.

“We just don’t have the tax base in Albia that a lot of communities around us have, and so this has been very, very hard to try to keep people,” Clark said. “When you can go somewhere else and drive 22 miles down the road and make more money, it’s hard to keep people.”

The city has been re-negotiating police contracts since December. The city council finalized a 3% raise for all police officers and a 4% raise for most supervisors, but Clark said, “that really wasn’t enough to entice them to stay here.”

After the police chief and another officer resigned, the Albia City Council voted Monday to raise wages even higher. But Clark said the raises were not enough to keep a third officer from resigning.

“We hoped to keep him with these new raises, but it didn’t work,” Clark said. “He got a job elsewhere … and turned his resignation in, so we are down three people.”

Albia resident Dan Walker says he sympathizes with city leaders and the officers that have left the force.

“I’m dismayed that the police officers felt like they had to do this, but then again, they have families,” Walker said. “I also have sympathies for our fine town here because sometimes you get to the end of the fiscal year, which we’re coming up on, and things are really getting tight.”

Lynne Osing, who now lives in Wapello County but was born and raised in Albia, says Albia’s staffing shortages highlight how new statewide property tax cuts impact local budgets.

“We might be cutting taxes at the state level, but we certainly are just passing that load and that responsibility to lower levels of government,” Osing said. “We can’t be the only ones that are using our funds and our resources to the best of our ability, but it’s impacting people’s lives.”

Many Albia residents have taken to social media, criticizing the wages the city has traditionally offered Albia police officers.

“Their point on Facebook is, pay them. Pay them a living wage and keep them here rather than trying to find new officers with sign-on bonuses that might not be invested in the community,” Osing said.

Despite understanding that criticism, Osing calls it a “complicated situation.”

“There are good people on the council and our mayor who are trying to be good stewards of the funding that they have received,” she said. “We had great officers that you want to retain. It’s a balancing act with funding. I don’t know what the right answer is.”

Although Clark said he does not know how the city plans to fill staffing shortages, he hopes the new raises will entice people to move to Albia and fill the open positions.

The city council plans to finalize the new police contract packages at their next public meeting in July.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.