Northfield Chief of Police Mark Elliott addressed the City Council during their work session meeting on Tuesday night to discuss the problems being felt both 
Over the last few years, for several reasons, the interest in law enforcement careers has been in decline. Elliott said during one hiring process in 2019, the Northfield Police Department had 55 candidates for one position. During the most recent hiring process in 2023 they had ten applicants, which, as Elliott pointed out, is an 80% drop. He said the numbers show the profession is in a hiring crisis.
Some of this, he said, was expected. In 2019 studies showed that the younger people entering the workforce were not as motivated by making money as previous generations were and put more value on work/life balance. Having time off from work, and having the ability to work from home, even prior to the pandemic, was becoming more important. Elliott said those values can work in opposition to law enforcement which does not afford the ability to work from home, and has often used a model where overtime compensation, and working more than 40 hours in a week, has been a cornerstone.
Elliott said hiring and retention is becoming a problem. Hiring bonuses are coming more and more into play, and the amount being paid is not insignificant.
“What we’re talking about is $20,000, $30,000, $15,000. In just this past month in California, one city offered a $75,000 signing bonus. Another one, very similar to Northfield with 29 sworn officers, offered a $50,000 signing bonus.”
As the workforce shrinks, Elliott said there are other issues that are being raised as well. As has been shown very recently just in Minnesota and Wisconsin, law enforcement can be a dangerous job, and officers want to be sure that they are not being left on their own to do the work.
“Are the shifts staffed appropriately? Are they working short staffed? Do they have backup available? I can tell you that’s a hot button topic this month, because in the past month, regionally, we’ve had four officers killed in the line of duty. Having backup with you is something that officers are concerned about. They want to be sure that they have partners that are there to help them.”
Chief Elliott said there are short- and long-term solutions to the issues that they are looking at. Last year, the Northfield Police Department worked with the Northfield Community College Collaborative and Riverland Community College to establish a law enforcement education program in Northfield, and the hope is the program will begin to funnel more officer candidates to the NPD in the coming years. Another is allowing the department to hire more officers than the authorized twenty-nine in anticipation of upcoming retirements. He said the department anticipates five retirements next year, and at least three of those will be senior leadership positions. It is necessary, he said, to have a full workforce in place in order to fill those important roles.
Elliott said the department will be coming back to the Council in the coming months with specific ideas on how to address the issue.
The council response was agreeable and supportive.
District looks to incorporate agricultural education into Tech Ed
On Monday night, the Northfield School Board approved the hiring of a Technology Education teacher who has an agriculture education license. Northfield 
Superintendent of Schools Dr. Matt Hillmann said it is the first step in bringing an agriculture education program back to Northfield High School.
Last year, during the budget reduction process for the 2022-2023 school year, one of the recommendations made to the school board was ending the agriculture partnership that Northfield has with the Randolph school district that allows for Northfield students to take Ag classes through Randolph High School. The idea was met by strong resistance from many members of the district community, and the program was preserved.
At the same time, Hillmann said, the district has been having difficulty hiring Technical Education teachers, largely because there are no colleges in Minnesota that offer Tech Ed licensure. Hillmann said with the movement over the last few years to point some students in the direction of Career Technical Education, more people are moving into those fields, and fewer people are going into teaching them.
“There’s a financial incentive and I think our students have been listening. Our students have realized those technical careers are lucrative and provide a very good living and are challenging and interesting in so many different ways. In this case, I think we’re victims of our own success in this career technical education pathway.”
When the outcry regarding the Ag program was made so clearly, the district began to look at the similarities between Ag education and Technical Education, revealing, he said, quite a bit of overlap. So much so, in fact, that the decision was made to begin offering Agriculture education in combination with Technical Education
“We really look at modern Ag education as a great connector for kids who might be college bound in science, and with the traditional, more Career Technical Education pathways in Ag. Really, agriculture addresses the needs of a variety of different students in Northfield.”
Hillmann pointed out that, quite often, when the school district asks for public input on what to do about a certain situation, the assumption can be that the request is nothing more than lip service. However, this situation, he said, proves just the opposite. By engaging the community in this conversation, not only did the school district reverse its recommendation to the school board, it found the solution to another nagging problem as well.
He also said that the return of Ag programs to Northfield High School will mean that the partnership with the Randolph School District will end. However, he said those students who participate in Randolph’s Future Farmers of America outreach program will still be able to do so. He also said this could possibly open the door to the revival of a Northfield FFA chapter.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
