St. Cloud PD Hosting Career Fair, Need to Hire 10-12 Officers

ST. CLOUD -- The St. Cloud Police Department, like most departments, is struggling to fill openings for police officers.

Commander Adam Meierding is part of the recruitment team. He says this year's city budget allows for four additional officers, but they are actually down 10 to 12 cops right now.

He says the openings are a combination of fewer people going into the profession and current officers leaving early.

If I'm being honest, we have had a few that are retiring early, whether that's them finding new career paths because of the climate around our profession...yeah, we have seen police retire early or finding new careers.  Obviously, it's been a tough few years for us.

St. Cloud could have 116 sworn officers, up from 112 last year, if they could fill all the open positions.

Requirements to apply to be a police officer include having a two-year law enforcement degree, having passed your POST skills.  Once you are hired, the St. Cloud Police Department would then enter you into its 10-week academy.

Meierding says, combining the non-sworn officer positions, the St. Cloud Police Department has at least 20 openings.

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There is a Police Career Fair coming up on March 5th from noon until 2:00 p.m.

However, you can get more information anytime by texting "JOIN SCPD" to (320) 373-9183. The career fair and the texting system are both new to the department as they try to find new ways to recruit more officers.