During its regular meeting last week, the Mill Creek City Council approved additional actions aimed at promptly filling vacancies in the police ranks with experienced officers. The City Council approved a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) between the City and the Mill Creek Police Officers’ Guild that included hiring bonuses of up to $20,000 to incentivize recruitment of experienced police officers. The City is coordinating with the Guild.
The preceding week, Council was presented with a draft MOU that included bonuses of up to $10,000. Recognizing that many cities in Snohomish County, the state, and the nation are facing the same shortage of experienced officers, the Council instructed staff to bring back a more competitive package. “Public safety is the Council’s highest priority and, as a result, the Council strongly believed that the City needed to increase its recruiting efforts,” Mayor Brian Holtzclaw said.
Currently, the City has three police officer vacancies with a crew of twenty-three officers on the force. Until June 2021, the City only had a single detective vacancy that it was in the process of filling. Recently, two additional vacancies opened up with recent departures of one corporal and one sergeant. The City has expedited its recruitment and hiring efforts by advertising the positions broadly, evaluating a list of new recruits, and recently completed internal interviews for the sergeant position this week.
Meanwhile, Council charged the City staff to present additional ways to successfully meet our recruitment goals. The City looks forward to working with the Guild to develop ideas for presentation to Council on proposed plans for how current and future vacancies will be filled as they arise.
Here at City Hall, we are immensely grateful to our officers for their willingness to go the extra mile by providing coverage during this extraordinary time. The City will continue to work with the Guild to ensure that its current officers are supported during this interim transition.