Seattle recruiters
raiding HPD
King County is luring officers
By Jaymes K. Song
with a higher pay scale and
a much lower cost of living
Star-BulletinA Washington county will try to lure away some of Honolulu Police Department's most coveted and scarce resources: officers. The King County Sheriff's Office is sending a team of six people, including two former Honolulu police officers, to recruit for the Seattle-based department next month.
"We've been receiving lots of calls already, and we haven't even advertised yet," said King County recruiting officer Tiffany Atwood, who plans to announce the openings in local newspapers in the next two weeks.
The group will test about 200 local officers starting Sept. 26. King County has 60 openings to fill, not including the 100 officers who are expected to retire soon. It must fill the need for growing patrol areas spurred by the Puget Sound's economy.The potential of hundreds of officers leaving to Seattle could be devastating to the HPD. The department has struggled to fill hundreds of vacancies caused by a mass exodus of officers taking advantage of an early retirement plan.
HPD has realigned patrol areas, employed "accelerated hiring" and exhausted millions in overtime because of the vacancies. As of Aug. 1, the department had 205 vacancies. It is allowed to have 2,128 officers.
King County's plan is to lure the officers with a pay scale that is higher than the HPD's.
An entry-level officer in King County earns $35,417 per year. Honolulu's entry-level officer earns $33,012. As the years continue, the gap widens.
With a lower cost of living, five-bedroom homes with big yards for less than $200,000, no state income tax and a strong public school system, the lure becomes stronger.
"I know it's hard to leave," said Malcolm Chang, a King County detective and former Honolulu police detective. "It was hard for me to leave. But you can make a little money up here, make the dollar go longer, give their family a better opportunity to experience life."
Chang said the only regret he has about moving to Seattle 15 years ago is that he wished he moved sooner.
"We are aware of it and we're concerned about it," said Honolulu police Chief Lee Donohue. "That's why there should be a parity in pay with other police departments of similar size."
"This comes at a bad time, when we're starting to catch up in filling our vacancies," Donohue said. "And we always have to be concerned about the more than 200 officers who currently qualify for retirement."
The State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers said if officers do decide to move, the city will lose millions of dollars spent training the officers and hiring new officers.
SHOPO estimates that each officer costs about $100,000 to put through the academy and field training.
"Quite frankly, I see HPD as nothing more than a training ground for other departments on the mainland at this point," said Sgt. Richard Wheeler, SHOPO's Oahu chapter chairman. "It's just going to continue to happen. It's just a vicious circle. Other departments are going to catch on."
Atwood said King County will save money by not having to pay for the training and by gaining experienced officers.
"Feel bad for stealing? Not really," Chang said, "because I feel sorry for the guys there because of the pay. They don't get paid much. They have to get a second job, work off duty and try to make ends meet."
The number of Honolulu police officers in the Pacific Northwest has grown tremendously. Chang and nine other former Honolulu officers started the Northwest Maka'i Ohana group in Seattle 10 years ago. Their group has grown to 150 people. They refer to the Puget Sound area as "HPD's North Precinct."
"It's really sad that it has come to this," Wheeler said. "In order for our guys to be able to make a decent living, take care of their families and fulfill their dreams, they can't do it here. For most of them, this is where they grew up. This is where they went to school, where their friends and families are. And in order to get a fair deal, they got to go elsewhere.
"The bottom line is, we sure hate to lose them," he said. "But if I can't get them a decent life here, then we'll get them a decent life elsewhere."
"I've said all along that our guys are the best," he said. "If these guys in the Northwest didn't think so, they wouldn't be making such a big deal about hiring them."
SHOPO said the solution is simple: pay to make them stay. But the city says the solution isn't as easy.
"We would like to pay police officers, but we just don't have the money right now," said Mayor Jeremy Harris.
‘A lot of guys’
By Jaymes K. Song
from HPD look to leave
Star-BulletinHonolulu police officer Robert Feigenspan loves Hawaii. He loves being close to his parents. He loves the department he has served 5-1/2 years.
But if all goes as planned, Feigenspan will be living in a rainy city, thousands of miles away from his parents and the island he grew up on.
"I would want nothing more than to stay, but I'm looking out for the future of my family," Feigenspan said. "I want to take care of my family the way I would like to. And I can't here."
Feigenspan, 29, is one of the many Honolulu officers applying for work with the King County, Wash., Sheriff's Office.
King County plans to send a team to Honolulu next month to recruit officers such as Feigenspan. The department is offering higher pay.
"To tell the truth, I'm not the only one applying," Feigenspan said. "There's a lot of guys. The buzz is going around, especially at the courthouse. It's even written on the board.
"For our city, it's kind of slap in the face. They're saying, 'We're coming down, so train these guys to a certain level so we can take them away from you.'"
Feigenspan, who is a patrol officer in Kalihi, applied to three departments in Washington last year. However, he didn't get the positions because he couldn't make time to go to the mainland.
Now, the opportunity is just right, he said. The recruiters are coming to Oahu for testing.
Feigenspan said he lives paycheck to paycheck to care for his twin 3-year-old daughters, Caitlyn and Jaclyn, and pay the mortgage on his Ewa Beach home.
"For the last two months, we've been down to our last dime," he said.
The Kaiser High School graduate earns about $34,380 a year. With his wife at home taking care of the children, he has been designated as the breadwinner.
With King County, Feigenspan would earn 44 percent more at $49,598.
"I was hoping things would start turning around for the better, but they haven't," he said. "There's always something new and it's not getting any easier."
King County has a strong public school system, and there are numerous colleges where his wife can study to become a pharmacist.
But he feels he wouldn't have to leave if the "pay here was up to par."
"Even if I go," he said, "I hope the ones who remain here and stick it out will eventually get what they deserve."
