#818 - Seattle to offer hiring bonuses of up to $25K to attract more police officers, 911 dispatchers

As hundreds of unvaccinated city employees are placed on leave or facing termination, the city of Seattle will start offering hiring bonuses to Seattle Police Department and 911 dispatch hires to address “critical ongoing staffing challenges,” Mayor Jenny Durkan’s office said late Friday. 

Durkan announced an emergency order that would provide hiring bonuses of up to $25,000 for laterally hired and $10,000 for newly hired officers and staff to the SPD and the Community Safety and Communications Center.

“When residents call 911, they expect an officer to show up — and when they call the 911 emergency line, they expect that someone will answer the phone,”  Durkan said in a news release. “Hiring, recruiting and training takes months, and we need to act now to ensure we can have trained and deployable staff. Seattle cannot keep waiting to address the real public safety officer hiring and retention crisis we are experiencing in Seattle right now.”

Join your host Sean Reynolds, owner of Summit Properties NW, and Reynolds & Kline Appraisal as he takes a look at this developing topic.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-to-offer-hiring-bonuses-of-up-to-25k-to-attract-more-police-officers-911-dispatchers/