Milton PD loses two officers to towns that pay better

Officer Marc Cilley

Officer Thomas Hebert

MILTON - In the past two weeks Milton has lost two officers - a fourth of its staff - to towns that pay better salaries, a problem that will continue until wages are brought more in line with today’s standards, according to Milton Police Chief Richard Krauss.

Right now Milton’s starting patrolmen received an annual salary of $35,000. Krauss would like to see this increased to $39,500 and again to $44,500 once the officer receives his certification.

He says the current wage structure is so low that surrounding towns scoop up Milton officers rather than pay the upfront costs associated with bringing a noncertified officer aboard.

In Milton’s case, the town pays about $32,000 to train and equip noncertified personnel, who are under contract to the town for three years. In many cases, towns will pay off the contract just to acquire a certified officer.

Such is the case with former Milton Officer Thomas Hebert, who left his Milton position on Friday for a job with the Biddeford (Maine) Police Department.

Another well-known and well-liked officer, Marc Cilley, who has been with the town almost four years, ended his tenure here last month and moved to the Rochester Police Department.

Krauss said the loss of Cilley hit particularly hard.

“That’s a loss of four years of experience,” he said. “He was also the DARE Officer. Residents knew Cilley, they knew the officer coming to their house.”

That leaves the department with just five certified officers instead of its normal complement of eight, and Krauss said it will be next fall before it will be at full strength again, that is as long as someone else doesn’t leave.

Krauss said the worst of it is that the town is constantly losing seasoned, experienced officers who know the people and know the turf.

“Let’s put it this way,” Krauss said earlier this week. “If you needed an electrician, would you want some guy that just graduated from school, or one that had been around for a while?”

Krauss said it takes a long time for new-hires to learn the ropes of the town, its trouble spots, its neighborhoods, its nuances.

He said with the recent resignations, it stretches out the other officers and doesn’t do any good for morale either.

“Morale always takes a hit when you lose officers, especially at a small department like this where it’s a family atmosphere,” he said.

Besides increasing the starting pay, the contract proposal would also increase, corporal ($42,000-$55,000), sergeant ($49,000-$62,000) and chief ($68,000-$78,000) salaries as well.

A new contract, however, would help stop the bleeding, Krauss said.

Milton Selectmen Bob Bridges agreed the new contract is necessary, pointing out the town is throwing away money by spending so much on training then losing its most experienced officers. He said they’ve lost 10 officers in 10 years, which is more than $300,000 “thrown out the window.”

“Officer retention is so important,” Bridges added. “For what it’s (the new contract) going to cost us, it’s nothing compared to what we’re putting into training.”

A law enforcement website, lawenforcementedu.net, put the average mean annual salary of New Hampshire police officers at around $45,000.

Last year Milton voters soundly defeated the city government budget which proposed a similar police pay increase.

To read more about the proposed contract, go to http://www.miltonnh-us.com/index.php and scroll down to a tab on the right.