By Rich Pollack
With local towns and cities struggling to one-up each other in the effort to hire qualified police officers, Highland Beach is raising the ante by buying 11 new vehicles and offering take-home police cars to its officers.
“This is going to help us retain and recruit the best possible police officers to preserve and protect our public safety,” Town Manager Marshall Labadie said. “It’s a small cost.”
With police departments all fighting for the same small pool of applicants, chiefs throughout the region are looking to provide competitive benefits, hoping to keep up with — or sprint ahead of — their neighbors. Those that provide assigned vehicles score big points.
“We’re creating a better mobile office,” Labadie said.
Among those looking to hire the best candidates are the larger police departments in the area, which can offer benefits not available in smaller communities — such as assignments to specialized units and more opportunities for advancement.
“If small towns along the coast aren’t competitive with the bigger cities, we’re not going to be able to recruit the best possible people for the job,” said Manalapan Town Manager Eric Marmer.
Marmer said there have been initial discussions about providing assigned vehicles to the police officers in the town’s department, which has 12 full-time sworn officers and four part-time officers.
Highland Beach’s Labadie believes that providing officers with take-home cars — which can be used only when officers are on duty or on the way to or from work — will lead to maintenance savings and add to the vehicles’ longevity.
“The cars now are constantly on the go,” he said.
As the area’s population grows, the demand for police officers will continue to increase, Labadie says, and his town needs to stay competitive.
With that in mind, Highland Beach in 2023 completed contract negotiations with the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association, which represents its officers, and agreed to increase the starting salary and to change the salary structure so that officers can reach the new top pay of $95,200 more quickly.
Already, Labadie said, other departments in the region have made salary changes that make them more attractive than Highland Beach.
Labadie said the cost of going to assigned vehicles will be about $800,000 with the town buying 11 new vehicles, which will be added to the five patrol vehicles, two administrative vehicles and one pickup truck that currently make up the fleet.
Funding for the program will come from two sources, with the federal American Rescue Plan Act covering about 60% of the cost and the remainder coming from town reserves.
In Gulf Stream, Police Chief Richard Jones says that shared cars sometimes run 24 hours straight and that idle time can reduce a vehicle’s usefulness even more than mileage.
He said that departments that offer take-home cars have found that the cars are better taken care of by the officers.
Gulf Stream does not offer an assigned vehicle program but has been talking about doing so, Jones said.
“You have to stay competitive as much as possible,” he said.
Even the region’s bigger cities need to remain competitive in order to attract and retain top quality police officers.
In Boca Raton, which has 217 sworn officer positions, officers who complete the department’s field training program receive a take-home vehicle if they live in either Palm Beach or Broward county. Currently, 185 Police Department employees have take-home vehicles.
Highland Beach has contracted with Enterprise Fleet Management Solutions, which will manage the purchase of the vehicles and deliver them completely outfitted. The $15,000-a-year contract will include Enterprise’s letting Highland Beach know when to rotate vehicles.
In South Palm Beach, which contracts with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for police services, deputies have assigned take-home vehicles.
Ocean Ridge does not offer take-home cars, but officers and sergeants receive a vehicle stipend of $5,400 every October.
Labadie says that the assigned vehicle program is part of Highland Beach’s movement to a “preferred employer standard” across the board.
“We want future employees to consider Highland Beach as a destination whether they’re police officers, paramedic firefighters, water plant operators or librarians,” he said.
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