LOWER MERION—During a recent meeting, Lower Merion Commissioners approved a resolution to offer employment to eight new probationary police officers.

According to township officials, most of the candidates must still complete the police academy while one is currently serving as an officer in another municipality.

“Our testing process for these candidates started back in March of 2026, where they attended a written examination, a physical agility examination, and then moved on to the oral examination part of it,” said Andy Block, superintendent of the Lower Merion Police Department. “They successfully completed those three phases of the hiring process and then moved to the background investigation, which was conducted over the last several weeks. All eight candidates have successfully completed their background investigation as well as their polygraph examination.”

According to Block, seven of the eight candidates must still complete the Montgomery County Police Academy, with the next class starting on July 6. The one candidate who has completed the academy certification is currently a police officer in another municipality.

Before the vote to approve the new officers, Lower Merion Commissioner Louis Rossman asked Block to comment on the high quality of the new police officers that are being hired by the township.

“This credit actually goes to our officers because, as we started this campaign and the previous one in 2025, they’re very much engaged in many different aspects and facets, specifically with doing the videos that we’ve been putting on our social media accounts. We’ve received a lot of comments, positive comments, and accolades about that. And I believe that’s one of the other tools that has helped tremendously in showing the potential candidates and our residents and the public that we’re a first-class professional police department, and we want candidates of that caliber to come here and work and serve within the township of Lower Merion to serve their residents and the businesses.”

Currently, the Lower Merion Police Department is authorized to have 136 officers. Today, the department has 122 officers, which is 14 short. In addition to the number of open positions, the department has 11 officers eligible to retire at any time.