There's some welcome news for those out of work on this Labor Day: the Little Rock Police Department needs to fill some vacant positions. But on this day when the president announced new jobs in the area of infrastructure improvements, Little Rock's police union president wishes more jobs were coming to public safety.
Fraternal Order of Police president John Gilchrist said, "I think the president's goal is to provide jobs and assist the economy. Would I like to see part of that money come this way, sure I would. We need it desperately."
Gilchrist says the police force could use more officers going from 574 officers in the mid 90's to the current cap of around 525. He says officers are handling citizens' needs now but worries about the future.
"We are meeting those minimum requirements, we handle those calls on a prioritized basis," Gilchrist said. "In the long run will it effect the response times for some of those prioritized calls? The answer is yes."
For now the good news is the police department wants to fill jobs that are vacant now or will be coming open soon, somewhere between 18 to 25 jobs according to Gilchrist's estimates. And plenty of people need work.
While Gilchrist praised the police chief for advocating the need for more police manpower he knows money has to come from somewhere to continue attracting qualified applicants and keeping them here. Some have suggest raising Little Rock's sales tax which is currently just half a cent, significantly lower than other city sales taxes.
The application deadline is October 24th and you have to apply online. Click the link next to this story to find out how to apply.
