New Police Recruits To Get $20K Bonus From Montgomery County In Bid To Fill Vacancies

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, MD — Montgomery County has reached an agreement with Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #35 to begin offering a $20,000 bonus to new sworn police recruits.

Funding for the initial part of the initiative will come from savings realized by the county from personnel vacancies within the Montgomery County Police Department, the county said in a news release Tuesday.

For the bonus program to be fully implemented, though, the Montgomery County Council will need to approve the initiative for the fiscal year 2024 budget and beyond, according to the county.

Lee Holland, president of the local FOP, thanked Montgomery County Executive Marc Elrich for working with Lodge 35 on providing a wage and benefit agreement that helps recruits and retains police officers in the county.

“We hope that the County Council approves these much-needed increases, so we can again be a competitive agency when it comes to wages and benefits,” Holland said in a statement.

Payments of the bonus would be made in stages. For example, the first payment would account for 10 percent of the total and come after a new recruit’s first day as a Montgomery County employee, the county said.

In testimony earlier this month before the Public Safety Committee of the Montgomery County Council, Police Chief Marcus Jones said the police department is currently down 129 sworn officers.

Other police departments in the Washington, D.C., area and across the country are facing the same police recruitment problems. In Fairfax County, Virginia, for example, the police department is down 177 sworn officers.

Elrich said the increased salaries and the new bonus will put the county in a better position to recruit police officers. “I thank Montgomery County Police Department and FOP leaders for agreeing to this new bonus because I think it will make Montgomery County more attractive to new recruits,” he said.

Montgomery County made the announcement in preparation for the next police recruitment class scheduled to begin in June at the county’s Public Safety Training Academy.

“This signing bonus is going to put us on a level playing field with competing jurisdictions for potential police officer candidates,” Jones said. “Without these bonuses, we would be at a disadvantage.”