WEST CHESTER TOWNSHIP — Now that voters have passed a 2.5-mill levy to boost police manpower, the next hurdle is recruiting qualified applicants to fill eight openings in the department.

QUALIFICATIONS

Applicants for the West Chester Township Police Department must be 21 by date of appointment, have a high school diploma or GED and driver's license for at least one year. To apply, call 759-7250 or go to the police department at 9113 Cincinnati-Dayton Road. The deadline to apply for the 2002 class at the Ohio State Highway Patrol Academy in Columbus is Monday. An officer's salary starts at $33,122.

        The recruits, however, won't hit the streets for about nine months while they train. A test for applicants — 170 have applied so far — will be held in early January, West Chester Township Police Chief John Bruce said this week.

        The levy allows the department to make five hires a year for the next five years to bring West Chester Township closer to the Midwest's average of 2.4 officers per 1,000 people. It will cost the owner of a $100,000 home $77 a year.

        Three additional officers also are needed to replace vacancies in the 71-officer department from the past year, Chief Bruce said. But so far, recruiting efforts have not been as fruitful as he hoped.

        Typically, for every 100 applications, the department ends up with three to five officers, Chief Bruce said. Previously, the department received up to 400 applications for a test, but those numbers have dwindled to about 150 in recent years.

        “The bigger pool we have, the more qualified applicants we get, historically. But we have had a difficult time recruiting qualified applicants and I'm not sure why,” he said.

        Last year, the department responded to about 50,000 calls, up 70 percent since 1994, records show. Arrests are up 103 percent, traffic accidents 13 percent, domestic calls 114 percent, and overall offense reports 27 percent, Chief Bruce said.

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