Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll recently welcomed two new officers to the department \u2014 the first hired through the department\u2019s lateral transfer program.<\/p>\n
In a ceremony on March 6, Officers Richard Stevens and Peter Hilburn were sworn in, as the first officers hired through the program, a pathway designed for currently certified officers to join the department and bring their experience to serve the Scranton community.<\/p>\n
Scranton City Council approved the program included in an ordinance at a September meeting.<\/p>\n
Stevens and Hilburn are now completing the department\u2019s field training program to prepare them for duty in city neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
The lateral transfer program is designed to\u00a0bypass the city\u2019s lengthy civil service process on hiring entry-level police officers.<\/p>\n
Certified officers looking to advance their career with the department are encouraged to consider joining the Scranton department, which is Pennsylvania Law Enforcement Accreditation Program accredited, equipping officers with state-of-the art technology.<\/p>\n
According to the September ordinance, the city \u201cis staunchly committed to merit-based hiring and transparent employment practices,\u201d but at times may \u201cbe unable to fill vacant entry-level police officer positions in a timely manner, necessary to meet the city\u2019s public safety needs under the current Civil Service competitive testing procedures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under the previous civil service commission examination process and state-required Act 120 certification through the Pennsylvania Municipal Police Officers\u2019 Education and Training Commission, it often took about 18 months before newly hired officers began active service with the department.<\/p>\n
Qualified applicants who have already gone through the Act 120 certification and training can now join the department much more quickly.<\/p>\n
Peer cities of Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton, Allentown and Reading already have this program in place to facilitate the hiring of Act 120-certified officers for public safety.<\/p>\n
Monday Update<\/p>\n
Then: In September, Scranton City Council approved the Scranton Police Department\u2019s lateral transfer program, a hiring pathway designed to bring in experienced, already-certified law enforcement officers from other agencies, allowing them to join the department without starting over as a new recruit.<\/p>\n
Now: Earlier this month, the Police Department welcomed Officers Peter Hilburn and Richard Stevens as the first two officers hired through the lateral transfer program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and Scranton Police Chief Thomas Carroll recently welcomed two new officers to the department…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":152142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,139,28,178,180,179,729],"class_list":["post-152141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}