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player ready...The flier shows a sprawling ranch-style house surrounded by lush landscaping and bearing the simple message: “Can you afford this home? In Phoenix, you can.”
The Phoenix, Ariz., Police Department is entering an already-stiff recruiting market with a campaign designed to lure potential candidates from Southern California, where housing prices are in the stratosphere. Phoenix is airing commercials on cable-TV stations in the San Fernando Valley, and recruiters plan to attend five job fairs in Los Angeles in the next two months.
“I’m not trying to pick a fight with Southern California agencies,” Phoenix police Sgt. Tony Lopez said. “I’m going to schools to find people who are becoming police officers for the first time.
“Los Angeles is really the only place where I can go and say our houses are only $250,000, and people will get excited about that. I can’t do that in Oklahoma or Texas, but I can do that in L.A.”
Out-of-town agencies’ recruiting in Los Angeles is nothing new. From New York to Honolulu, recruiters often come to the city made famous in “Dragnet” and “Adam-12.” But Phoenix’s narrow advertising pitch — aimed specifically at Southern Californians priced out of the red-hot housing market — seems to be a new twist on the old angle.
Phoenix’s annual starting pay of $40,476 is less than the $43,713 paid by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the $51,114 paid by the Los Angeles Police Department.
But that salary goes a lot further in Phoenix, where the median home price is $243,400. Compare that with this month’s $494,000 average in Los Angeles County or the $600,000 median in the Valley, and you’ve heard the Phoenix sales pitch.
“That’s a great ad that Phoenix has, I’ll admit it,” said Lt. Art Miller of the LAPD’s recruiting section. “But what we have to offer in terms of a law enforcement career exceeds most people’s expectations when they go into law enforcement.”
Even before Phoenix launched its aggressive campaign, local agencies were pitted in an intense battle for recruits.
The LAPD and the county Sheriff’s Department each plans to add at least 1,000 officers in the coming years. The Glendale Police Department is looking to hire 100 officers, and the Burbank Police Department has struggled just to fill jobs of departing officers.
And with relatively low unemployment rates, recruiters say, fewer people are interested in public-sector jobs — particularly those that are inherently dangerous.
“The pool of qualified applicants is shrinking,” said sheriff’s Sgt. Val Rosario. “This is not just an L.A. County problem; this is a nationwide problem. The competition is fierce.”
Because of the smaller talent pool, recruiters are becoming more aggressive.
In March, LAPD recruiters went to Las Vegas, Nev., where they appeared on local radio shows and set up a booth at a convention at the Stardust Casino. They plan to visit three military bases in Virginia and North Carolina in October.
The Phoenix Police Department’s decision to enter the Los Angeles recruiting market with such enthusiasm, though, underscores the overarching issue of the escalating cost of living in California. To out-of-town organizations, that’s a vulnerability that can be exploited — and not just in law enforcement.
“You talk to any businessperson, and they’ll tell you they’re concerned that there is no affordable housing [in Los Angeles],” said Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. “Are they going to maintain the work force, especially younger people? Attracting new people is very difficult.
“The bottom line is that there’s a huge demand. We have a shortage of 280,000 housing units in Los Angeles, and if you said `affordable housing units,’ that number would be even bigger.”