Shutdown Keeping Hopkins Police Short Staffed

Hopkins police——must hold off on hiring the extra officer they need to return to full strength because of the state government shutdown.

All three candidates need to be certified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) Board before Hopkins can swear them in, said Acting City Manager Jim Genellie. However, that state regulatory body was not initially declared "essential" in Judge Kathleen Gearin's

"How long the shutdown will go is anybody’s guess," said Genellie. "We had scheduled the new officer to be sworn in in front of the (City) Council on July 19, but that day is now up in the air."

However, there is a posibility that Hopkins and other cities will not have to wait until Governor Mark Dayton and legislative leaders reach what seems to be an increasingly distant budget deal. On Tuesday, League of Minnesota Cities attorney Tom Grundhoefer appealed to shutdown Special Master Kathleen Blatz to restore funding to the POST Board, saying the cuts are putting Minnesotans at risk.

“The hiring process (for police officers) is lengthy,” Hutchinson Police Chief Daniel Hatten explained. “Once we reach the point where an officer can be hired and training can begin, we still have three to four months before that officer can become a functioning member of the public safety department. Every day we kick the can down the road prolongs this scenario.”

Current police officers and county courts are also at risk.

With the government shutdown in place, vehicle license databases are not being updated, explained Minneapolis-based attorney Kurt Glaser.

The databases that help officers determine the category and number of vehicle-related offenses since the government shutdown are erroneous at best and incomplete at worst.

“Police officers may start to err on the side of not taking offenders into custody because drivers know they’ll get a pass,” Glaser told Blatz.

David Lillehaug, special counsel for Gov. Mark Dayton, echoed these sentiments: “This sounds like a serious problem. It needs to be dealt with immediately. We request the right to come back to this issue as early as tomorrow.”