Columbus City Council could fill two key positions in the police department as early as its next meeting on May 15.
Mayor Robert Smith told the CPD Citizen Overview Committee Thursday city officials had completed the interview process earlier that day for the assistant chief and captain of the investigations unit.
“So hopefully in the next couple of weeks, we’ll have a recommendation,” Smith said.
Human Resources Director Pat Mitchell said the city fielded 18 applicants for assistant chief and eight for investigations captain. The budgeted salary for the assistant chief position is $66,000, she said, while the pay rate for captain positions is $59,037.
The new assistant chief will fill a vacancy left by Fred Shelton in January when he was promoted to police chief. The captain’s position has been vacant since Feb. 21 when Brent Swan left the department for a position with the Lowndes County Sheriff’s Office.
On Thursday, during the overview committee’s quarterly meeting, neither Shelton nor Smith would elaborate, when asked by a committee member, whether there were in-house candidates for either position.
“Let’s just say we’re looking at somebody,” Smith said.
When The Dispatch later contacted Shelton for more information on the applicants, he again declined.
“I’m not at liberty to say anything more about the candidates,” he said.
Staffing numbers
During Thursday’s brief meeting, Shelton also updated the overview committee on his department’s staffing.
“Right now, we are currently holding at 65,” Shelton said. “However, we did have an officer turn in her resignation on Tuesday and she’ll be leaving to go to the Lowndes County Sheriff’s (Office) sometime this month.”
Although Shelton did not mention her by name, the officer leaving is Haley Lucas, according to LCSO officials. Lucas finished at the top of her police academy class in 2017 and has been with the CPD for just more than a year.
Shelton said that staffing figure of 65 includes four officers currently attending police academy in Tupelo and three other recent hires who will be going to the academy later this month.
“We have six applicants who have passed the CT test we gave last Saturday,” Shelton said. “We’ll have to do background checks on them and interview them. If we could hire all six that would give us 70.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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