Jul. 15—WEBB CITY, Mo. — Retaining and recruiting employees and providing services to a growing community are the biggest challenges facing the police and fire departments in Webb City.
The construction of businesses on East Street in the reclaimed mining area on the east side of town, new businesses under construction on Madison Avenue and Main Street, and new homes going in all over town are pushing officials to be creative to keep the best employees and maintain the equipment to serve residents.
"Retention is always an issue," said Webb City Police Chief Don Melton. "You want to try to keep the people you've got. The city was gracious enough to give a bonus to all city employees and a little more of a bonus to emergency responders last year for retention."
Fire Department
Fire Chief Andy Roughton said finding applicants to replace retiring workers and those who move on has become more difficult.
"Over the last five years, it has been a challenge to find applicants that have the necessary certifications," Roughton said. "In the past, classes for these certifications were available at area colleges. Now we are finding new ways to offer this training to applicants once they are employed with us. Since the pandemic it has seemed that there are fewer people interested in the fire service, so we are all working to find a new method to try and recruit future employees."
Roughton said some Webb City firefighters have added to their skill sets to expand the services the department can offer.
"We now are able to provide advanced life-support services to our community utilizing fire department paramedics," he said. "This was something we worked hard to obtain to ensure our citizens have the best level of care in case of an emergency medical issue. We started this program about two years ago."
Roughton said the cost of vehicles is going up, adding to the challenges the department faces as the community grows.
"The cost of vehicles and equipment needed to protect our citizens and staff is rising fast," he said. "Some equipment is taking months to over a year to get, so planning for this issue is becoming a must."
Police Department
Melton said he has used a federal grant to add officers to the department in the face of growing needs.
"In 2021, we were awarded a Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing grant where we were able to increase our staffing by three, bringing us from 23 to 26 officers," Melton said. "Just recently, the Webb City School District has asked to add a third school resource officer to the two we have, and they split the cost fifty-fifty with us. So in the last two years, we've increased our department by four officers, moving from 23 sworn to 27 sworn."