Nearly 20 city officers are expected to retire within the next 2 years.
Mike Saewitz, Sarasota Herald-Tribune
Almost 20 of the Sarasota Police Department’s senior officers -- including three with the highest rank -- are expected to retire within the next two years.
So the 204-officer department plans to hire as many as 25 new officers each of the next two years to compensate for the loss, which will be compounded by officers who leave the department for other reasons.
Deputy Chief Ed Whitehead, 51, Support Services Capt. James Schultz, 49, and Professional Standards Capt. Al Woodle are among the 19 officers expected to retire.
“We’re losing some of our top brass,” said department spokesman Jay Frank.
Whitehead, Schultz, Woodle and the other officers are expected to retire because they entered the department’s “drop plan” three years ago.
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The drop plan is designed to give officers added retirement benefits at an earlier age and also to save the city some of the money it spends on senior officers.
Once an officer enters the drop plan, thousands of dollars of pension money go to an account he can’t touch until retirement. If he wants to collect the money, the officer must retire within five years of enrolling in the plan.
To enroll, an officer must have 25 years of service or be 50 years old and have 20 years of service, Frank said.
“A lot of folks have been here since the ‘70s,” Woodle said. “The baby boom generation of law enforcement is getting ready to retire just like everyone else.”
Twenty-five officers have left the department in the past 20 months, Frank said. Twenty-two replacements have been hired.
Five officers, including two veterans, have been fired for misconduct or have resigned amid internal investigations since last year.
Woodle and Detective Kenneth Evans, who’s in charge of recruiting, are touting salary and benefits to attract more solid candidates.
An entry level officer, who must be 19 years old and have a high school diploma or GED certificate, makes $ 28,000 a year. After 18 months, the salary could be bumped gradually up to almost $42,000 a year.
Officers with four-year college degrees are paid an additional $ 50 a month, and bilingual officers are also paid more per month.
The officers work 12-hour shifts for an average of 14 days a month, Woodle said.
He said the department is looking for “public-service-oriented” candidates.
“Being an officer is not a job,” he said. “It’s a way of life.”