Mayor Carol Bourgeois Jr. calls for a vote at Monday’s Jeanerette Board of Aldermen meeting.

JEANERETTE — Jeanerette continues to deal with staffing issues for the town’s police department, with half of its complement of officer slots open.

Mayor Carol Bourgeois Jr., who signs off on new officer hires along with the police chief, said that the town currently has three openings within the police department and has been going through applications and background checks.

The shortage is not a budgetary issue following the town’s fiscal administration was released from a state-appointed fiscal administrator assigned during former Mayor Aprill Foulcard’s term.

“All of our other departments are generally healthy,” Bourgeois said. “It’s just the police department that we need to round out.”

The department is budgeted for six officers, plus a police chief. Only three slots and the police chief’s position are staffed. When he presented an update of the department’s operations to the board of aldermen recently, Chief Dustin Vallot said that the officer shortage was the department’s biggest problem.

But the shortage stems from a bigger problem facing smaller communities, which is retaining officers after investing time and money in getting new hires police officer standards and training (POST) certified.

“A lot that apply aren’t POST 1 or 2 certified,” Bourgeois said. “It’s a process, and a lot of individuals will start thinking they want to be a police officer and then decide it’s not for (them) later on.”

Smaller departments generally fund training for aspiring officers through a police academy over the course of several months. Bourgeois said a problem for many small communities is that an officer will finish the academy and later move on to a bigger agency.

“We have a policy where you have to stay two years or you will have to pay all of the expenses for the academy as well as insurance, retirement and overtime,” Bourgeois said.

Controversy around Jeanerette’s hiring practices surfaced at the Jeanerette Board of Aldermen’s meeting last month. Alderman Clarence Clark questioned the city’s hiring practices as well as the way the hiring structure is set up.

Under current policy, the mayor has the final say on which officers are hired. Clark said he took issue with the mayor not hiring interested officers at that meeting.

“The problem I’m seeing is that a lot of people have contacted me about working at the police department but our hiring process, I’m being told, is not fair,” Clark said at the meeting. “I know of one guy who applied to the department and was denied, so he applied to another department and was immediately hired.”

Bourgeois said Friday that the administration and police department were looking to find some common ground.

“We’re working on it,” he said.