[10/9/02]In the year since Vicksburg Police Chief Tommy Moffett arrived, the number of officers in the department has dropped from too many to too few, he said.

Now at 73, the count was about 103 when Moffett arrived in October 2001, he said. That’s 13 or 14 too few, he said, and the VPD is looking to hire entry-level and experienced officers to make up the difference.

“At this point, we think about 86 or 87 officers will be adequate,” Moffett said.

Of the officers who have departed since Moffett arrived, about eight or nine have been fired and the others have retired or resigned, the chief said.

“I never wanted to get down as low as we are,” Moffett said, adding that the department has lost officers for a variety of reasons, including at least five retirements of officers who had 25 years’ or more experience.

The department was looking closely this week at four or five unsolicited applications from experienced officers, with the hope that at least two would result in hires, Moffett said. He also said the department would be advertising soon for new officers, highlighting the relatively high salaries paid here now and other benefits.

“We haven’t shown how attractive we are,” he said, adding that the department’s new salary scale, one of the highest in the state, should allow Vicksburg to attract experienced officers seeking lateral moves. The scale’s annual-base-pay range for patrol officers is $25,000 to $31,000, and it includes incentives for education and physical fitness that push a patrolman’s annual pay to $34,300.

“We have a council that is supportive and salaries that are attractive, and we’re in a training mode,” Moffett said, listing other benefits of the department he intends to advertise.

Shortly after Moffett began in Vicksburg, on Oct. 3, 2001, he stressed the need for training among officers and arranged their work schedules to allow them to be in training about one out of six months. That concentration of training has since been reduced to one day a month, he said.

“That’s still more than most (other departments’ officers) get in a year,” Moffett said. “That’ll start to add up really quick.”

Another of Moffett’s criticisms of the department when he took office was the top-heaviness of its rank structure. It had about 45 supervisory-level officers, who hold the rank of sergeant or above. That number is now down to about 33, he said.

“Unfortunately, there are others that we’ll lose,” he said of the department as a whole. “We’re trying to build a good department.”