2023-09-22 Police Commission Regular Minutes

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Hawaii Police Commission Regular Session Minutes September 22, 2023 Page 3 communication officers are fully staffed, with five filled positions and no vacancies. The department has filled 419 of the 484 sworn positions (87%) and 126 out of 156 civilian positions (81%). The 981h recruit class with seven new hires started on July 17, 2023, and will be in academic training until January 15, 2024. Six recruits in the 97th recruit class moved into field training. They will hit the road after field training on November 15, 2023. Recruitment for the 99th recruit class ran from February 5-14, 2023. There were 267 applicants, 99 took the written test, 72 passed the written test, 72 were summoned to the agility, 60 applicants showed up, 47 passed, and 13 failed. Out of those 13 that failed the agility, there was an opportunity to retake, which occurred this week. The tentative start date for the 99th recruit class is November 16, 2023. Internal recruitments for PO III ran internally within the department from September 11- 20, 2023, interviews were completed. Positions for School Resource Officers (SRO) are looking to be filled, along with other PO III positions in November. Recruitment for PO I is continuous. The first written exam took place on June 26, 2023, followed by the physical agility test on July 26, 2023. Out of the initial group, 34 applicants successfully passed the physical agility test. Agility was scheduled for the last group on September 20th.This group consisted of 13 individuals who needed to retake the agility test from the earlier group that did not pass. Among this group, one applicant passed, six failed, and six did not appear for the agility test. Out of the new applicants in that group, there were 47 attendees for that agility test, 17 passed, 19 failed, and 11 did not show. Out of those 19 failures, they'll have the opportunity to retake the next agility test with the new recruitment. There was further discussion regarding the continuous recruitment process, sworn vacancies within the department, and long-term trends. Chief Moszkowicz noted that, based on available data, the department has not been at 100% staff capacity for at least the past 12 years. The ongoing recruitment efforts aim to continue adding to the staffing levels, ultimately working toward achieving full staffing. Commissioner Bertsch inquired about the possibility of holding a recruit class on the west side of the island to attract more applicants, perhaps running two classes on the east side and one on the west side. Chief Moszkowicz explained that with the move to having three classes annually, they anticipate a situation in November where one class is 23 months into training while another is just starting. They're looking at balancing out those classes and having portions of each class either done on the west side or at PTA, or different places. He noted that firearms training occurs in Waimea, so 100% of the class isn't in Hilo. Running multiple classes with different geographic locations consistently might pose a