News Photo by Julie Riddle Officer Ryan Wiseley, of the Rogers City Police, is at home in small-town, up-north Michigan, a place where it’s become increasingly difficult to hire police officers.

ALPENA — A good cop is hard to find.

At least, if you’re trying to hire one.

Once upon a time, an open position in a police department would mean dozens of applicants clamouring for attention.

Now, Presque Isle County Sheriff Joe Brewbaker said, he’s lucky to get four.

And even then, some of them don’t even return his phone calls.

Staffing a police force in rural Michigan is becoming increasingly difficult, officials say. As older officers age out of the force and retire, new applicants are needed to fill police vacancies statewide.

Those applicants just aren’t there, local law enforcement agencies say.

People don’t want to be police officers anymore, Brewbaker said. The pay, especially in smaller, rural areas, isn’t stellar, and pensions and benefits are being cut by many agencies trying to make ends meet.

Cumbersome and hot bullet-proof vests, 12-hour shifts, and missed holidays because duty calls are fatiguing and hard on the family, officers say.

Then, too, is the declining image of the police officer, as depicted by news outlets and social media.

The public rarely gets to hear about the work officers do most of the time, Brewbaker said, or see the thank-you notes they receive for their caring and professionalism.

“People like dirt,” the sheriff said. “Officers do make mistakes, and they do mess up. We’re people. And that’s what gets focused on.”

A decline in respect for police officers makes potential recruits second-guess going into the profession, Brewbaker said.

At the same time, the need for officers is skyrocketing.

A clearinghouse of Michigan law enforcement job openings on the Michigan Commission of Law Enforcement Standards website used to offer only a few sparse openings. Now, the site lists 124 job openings for patrol officers, deputies, detectives, court security, and conservation officers at city and county agencies statewide.

With fewer people entering police academies and positions going unfilled in police departments around the state, new graduates can pick and choose where they want to accept their first job.

Rural, upstate areas are not always their top choice.

NOT ‘CHASING CARS

EVERY DAY’

In small-town, rural areas, police action isn’t what young officers fresh from the academy may have dreamt of growing up.

“You’re not going to be chasing cars every day, ” said Officer Ryan Wiseley, who, for the five years since coming out of the academy, has served at the Rogers City Police Department. “You’re not going to be doing the stuff you see on TV.”

Wiseley, a Hillman native, always intended to return home to northern Michigan to work. But, he said, that’s not a choice everyone makes.

In metropolitan areas farther south, off-duty hours can be filled with entertainment, nightlife, and other opportunities not so easily accessible in the north. Rural areas can’t offer mass transit or Uber or Lyft, no big-store shopping districts that are attractive to families.

At some police academies, Wiseley has seen, cadets are snatched up by big-city departments before they even graduate, lured by city amenities and bigger salaries.

That’s hard for small towns in out-of-the-way places to compete with, officers say.

Beloved by many of its residents, the rural north isn’t for everyone, Brewbaker acknowledged, a fact he thinks keeps potential officers from applying for job openings.

“Why would they want to come to Rogers City?” Brewbaker asked. “We know why. But trying to get someone from out of the area to come here … It’s an acquired taste.”

Working for a small town takes the right kind of officer, according to Wiseley.

Uniformed men and women in rural areas don’t just issue speeding tickets. They are also called on, Wiseley said, to help an elderly person out of their chair or push someone’s car out of the snow.

“You’ve got to find applicants like that, that understand a small town,” he said. “And that’s harder and harder to find.”

COSTS MORE THAN MONEY

A reduced police force in a small county means more than fewer officers on the road. An understaffed department is dangerous to both the community’s budget and its safety, Alcona County Undersheriff Keith Myers said.

For safety’s sake, it’s county policy that two officers at a time be sent on road patrol, Myers said. When the department is not at full staff, if someone takes a vacation day or calls in sick, other officers have to be called in on their days off, incurring overtime pay that can cost the county more than an additional salary.

That also costs the officers who put in extensive overtime.

“You can see it,” Myers said. “It starts to wear on them,” Myers said.

The Alcona County Sheriff’s Office, which is trying to maintain a 24-hour road patrol despite multiple tax requests rejected in recent elections, is currently two officers short of a full staff. Aggressive recruiting utilizing social media, online job boards, and direct outreach into police academies netted the office six applicants for two job openings, which is not enough, Myers said, once physical, psychological, and other evaluations are taken into consideration.

‘WE HAVE TO GO TO THEM’

When Rogers City Police Chief Matt Quaine posted a job opening at the beginning of July, it was three and half months before he found a qualified applicant for the position.

“Before, candidates would come to us,” Quaine said. “Now, we have to go to them.”

Departments need to sell themselves and their community to prospective officers, Quaine said.

Past practices of police departments financially sponsoring officers to go through police academy, with the expectation that the new officer would return back home for work, may need to be resurrected to encourage new recruits to consider the profession, Quaine suggested.

“Recruitment’s going to be the big deal,” Quaine said, “to get out there and sell what you have.”

In Montmorency County, Sheriff Chad Brown has seen officers leaving the force and the profession as a whole because they can earn more working at a factory or cement plant.

In a time when departments across the state are competing with each other to fill their rosters, some of his deputies have been pulled away to neighboring counties that pay a few more dollars an hour.

The resources of a police force are finite, Brown said. Montmorency County currently has one opening for a deputy, and, Brown said, has one of the lowest police salaries in the state.

“There’s no profit we can share with employees, no Christmas bonuses,” Brown said. Public safety jobs “are done for righteousness, not for financial gain.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.