Schaumburg hires cops laid off by other towns

Schaumburg Police Friday will swear in their first officers recruited through a new lateral hire policy, which favors officers laid off by other departments for purely financial reasons.

The two officers will be sworn in at 4 p.m. that day in the community room of the police station at 1000 W. Schaumburg Road.

The new hires are Noel Rehana, formerly of the Park Ridge Police Department, and Jeffrey Kaminski, formerly of the Plainfield Police Department.

They will soon be joined by a third officer, to fill the three vacancies created by retirements in the past few months.

Schaumburg Police Chief Brian Howerton said hiring an already certified officer can result in a savings per officer of $18,000 and months of training time compared to an applicant yet to go through the police academy.

"I started to think about this last December, that there's this pool of certified officers out there that have been laid off through no fault of their own," Howerton said.

As well as being certified, officers on the lateral hire list must also meet Schaumburg's other criteria, such as having a bachelor's degree and being under 40 years old at their time of hire.

Whatever their prior level of experience, officers hired through the new policy will receive entry-level pay. However, it only takes four years for Schaumburg officers to reach the top of their union's pay scale.

While layoffs are something affecting some other suburban police departments, Schaumburg has avoided them by having had a hiring freeze for the past few years.

The Schaumburg village board approved Howerton's proposal for a lateral-hire policy last March.