WILDWOOD – The city has added a sergeant to its Police Department roster by doing away with an administrative captain’s slot.
The Board of Commissioners passed an ordinance on May 8 that increases the number of sergeants in the department from five to six, equaling the number of authorized lieutenants.
Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. said the move was made to have one more supervisor out in the city.
“We eliminated a captain and are putting another sergeant in a position where they can be on the street,” Troiano said. “We had one captain who was doing paperwork. It’s a lot of money to pay for a captain to do paperwork.”
At the same time, the city is struggling with the continuing shortage of special law enforcement officers, also known as Class II officers, which many shore towns hire to augment their regular police ranks during the tourist season.
Troiano said at the commissioner meeting that the city used to hire about 40 Class II officers but this year has only nine due to a lack of applicants, continuing a trend of having fewer applicants for both seasonal and full-time officers. (See a Herald story last year on the decline in Class II numbers, Fewer Applicants Means Fewer Summer Police Officers (capemaycountyherald.com.)
The city will have 51 full-time officers in 2024, from the police chief on down.
Contact the reporter, Christopher South, at csouth@cmcherald.com or 609-886-8600, ext. 128.
