Houston Offers $12,000 Signing Bonus To Police Cadets

Houston, TX (AHN) - A few good men for the Houston police force are difficult to find these days. The lure of overseas defense assignment is the threat that recruitment officers of Houston have to contend with. To counter it, the department is willing to shell out $12,000 in signing bonuses to young men and women willing to train as police cadets.

The Houston City Council approved on Wednesday the $12,000 bonus for the first 140 accepted applicants. The next 140 to be admitted in time for summer training would be entitled to a lesser amount of $8,000 per head.

Houston's offer is more competitive than Dallas' $10,000 signing bonus. To fulfill these financial promises to would-be police officers, the city council approved a $2.8 million budget. The monetary incentive hopes to reverse the downward enrollment in Houston's police academy which has been struggling the past years to fill up 70 slots. The last batch was made up of only 43 cadets.

Mayor Bill White said, "We are in the hunt, we are competitive." Martha Montalvo, chief executive assistant, admits recruiting young people to join the city's police force is a tough job. "The work force is not out there with the skills we need or the background we need... and we're not going to lower our standards," Montalvo said.

Police union leaders are wary of the hefty signing bonuses, describing it as a Band-aid solution. Mark Clark, executive director of the House Police Officers' Union, pointed out the huge signing up pay-offs may cause new recruits who joined earlier without signing-up bonuses to become bitter.

The city wants to add 1,300 more police officers to the current 4,800 and to replace the 900 who recently retired. The salary of a police cadet in Houston is a little over $30,160 on the first year, while a Dallas trainee gets $41,690.