• About
    • About Us
    • What We Cover
  • Advertise
    • Advertise
    • Our Advertisers
  • Contact
  • Donate
  • Send News
  • Subscribe

Oak Ridge Today

  • Home
  • Sign in
  • News
    • Business
    • Community
    • Education
    • Government
    • Health
    • Police and Fire
    • U.S. Department of Energy
    • Weather
  • Sports
    • High School
    • Middle School
    • Recreation
    • Rowing
    • Youth
  • Entertainment
    • Arts
    • Dancing
    • Movies
    • Music
    • Television
    • Theater
  • Premium Content
  • Obituaries
  • Classifieds

 

15 percent turnover not necessarily cause for alarm, UT professor says

Posted at 9:06 pm February 8, 2015
By John Huotari 6 Comments

Terry Leap

Terry Leap

One of the initial concerns raised about the Oak Ridge Police Department last month was whether the turnover rate was high.

Oak Ridge City Council member Trina Baughn said she had calculated a 15 percent annual turnover rate in the 3.5 years that Police Chief Jim Akagi has led the department. That compares to a reported turnover rate of only 2.9 percent for the Knoxville Police Department, Baughn said.

“I’m sure you agree that having a turnover rate five times that of our neighbor demands further scrutiny,” Baughn told City Manager Mark Watson in a January 25 email.

But Oak Ridge municipal officials said they don’t think the turnover rate is significantly out of line with what it has been previously. Watson said an average of 7.25 employees per year have left in the last four years due to resignations, retirements, or being asked to leave.

Last week, a University of Tennessee professor suggested that a 15 percent turnover rate, by itself, might not be a cause for concern.

“I don’t think if I was the Oak Ridge police chief that would set off too many alarms,” said Terry Leap, who is the head of the Department of Management in the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee. But Leap said he doesn’t know the specifics of the Oak Ridge Police Department or why officers are leaving.

Advertisement

Leap said turnover, a heavily researched topic in management, can vary drastically by industry, but a 10 percent turnover rate wouldn’t be too far from the norm.

He forwarded an article on police turnover in the February 2015 issue of “The Police Chief.” That story, headlined “Police Turnover,” said a recent study completed by the state of North Carolina found that police agencies across the state experienced an average turnover of 14 percent in patrol positions. The average tenure for a new officer there is 33 months, the story said.

Leap also forwarded a “Best Practices Guide for Recruitment, Retention, and Turnover of Law Enforcement Personnel” by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and its Smaller Police Department Technical Assistance Program. The guide, which is undated but appears to have been published around 2007 or 2008, includes a section on turnover, which was reported at the time to be increasing across the nation.

The guide said Florida officials reported in 1999 that 14 percent of state and county officers and 20 percent of municipal officers left within the first 18 months of employment. It reported other averages ranging from as low as 8.25 percent in cities in Vermont between 2001 and 2006, to 12.7 and 14.2 percent in North Carolina in 2003, to 35 percent in some officer positions in Alaska between 1983 and 1997.

It’s not clear if the guide has since been updated.

Advertisement

Leap said a workplace average that is higher than the industry average could be a possible cause for alarm.

On Sunday, Baughn said she would like more information about the data forwarded by Leap, and she would encourage a comparison of turnover rates with surrounding communities since those are the city’s direct competitors.

“I still consider our turnover rate too high,” she said. “We’ve lost 40 percent of our force in 3.5 years, and we just lost another ORPD employee this past week. His story, like those that have recently emerged, indicate that we have the ability to decrease that rate drastically, but only if we are willing to dig deep enough to understand the root cause(s).”

Turnover has been an issue for the Oak Ridge Police Department before. Among the past concerns has been officers leaving the city to go to work for former security contractor Wackenhut/WSI Oak Ridge at U.S. Department of Energy facilities.

But what’s different in the current debate are the questions that have been raised publicly about the chief’s leadership, whether the turnover rate is worse than before, and what factors might be contributing to the departure of officers now. Also, there seems to be at least some concern that the city is losing some good officers.

City officials said salary and benefits are among the reasons that employees cite for leaving. Family and working environment are also sometimes cited.

More information will be added as it becomes available.

Copyright 2015 Oak Ridge Today. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Filed Under: College, Education, Front Page News, Government, Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge, Police and Fire, Top Stories Tagged With: Best Practices Guide, Department of Management, Haslam College of Business, International Association of Chiefs of Police, Jim Akagi, Knoxville Police Department, Mark Watson, Oak Ridge City Council, Oak Ridge Police Department, Police Turnover, Smaller Police Department Technical Assistance Program, Terry Leap, The Police Chief, Trina Baughn, turnover, turnover rate, University of Tennessee, Wackenhut, WSI Oak Ridge

Advertisements

 


Join the club!

If you appreciate our work, please consider subscribing. Besides helping us, your subscription will give you access to our premium content.

Some of our stories are free, brought to you by Oak Ridge Today with help from our members—advertisers, subscribers, and sponsors.

But some are premium content, available only to members. Those are in-depth, investigative, or exclusive stories that are available only on Oak Ridge Today. They generally require significant time to report, write, and publish.

You can subscribe for as little as $5 per month.

You can read more about your options here.

We currently offer five primary subscription options to readers, and they include benefits.

Basic

  • Basic monthly subscription ($5 per month)—access premium content
  • Basic annual subscription ($60 per year)—access premium content

Pro

  • Pro monthly subscription ($10 per month)—access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month
  • Pro annual subscription ($100 per year)—save $20 per year, access premium content, get breaking news emails first, and submit one press release or public service announcement per month

Temporary

  • Temporary access ($3 per week for two weeks)

We also have advanced subscription options. You can see them here.

We also accept donations. You can donate here.

If you prefer to send a check for a subscription or donation, you may do so by mailing one to:

Oak Ridge Today
P.O. Box 6064
Oak Ridge, TN 37831

Thank you for your consideration and for reading Oak Ridge Today. We appreciate your support.

Commenting Guidelines

We welcome comments, but we ask you to follow a few guidelines:

1) Please use your real name, including last name. Please also use a valid e-mail address.
2) Be civil. Don't insult others, attack their character, or get personal.
3) Stick to the issues.
4) No profanity.
5) Keep your comments to a reasonable length and to a reasonable number per article.

We reserve the right to remove any comments that violate these guidelines. Comments held for review, usually from those posting for the first time, may not post if they violate these guidelines. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Thank you also for reading Oak Ridge Today and for participating in the discussion.

More information is available here.

Comments

  1. Matt Bailey says

    February 8, 2015 at 9:12 pm

    Dear Mr. Leap…you might want to alert the IT dept.at UT….your email account is about to blow up!

    Reply
  2. Joseph Lee says

    February 9, 2015 at 7:37 am

    Mr. Leap,
    Please contact Councilwoman Trina Baughn in Oak Ridge, Tennessee at your earliest convenience. Clearly, you need your data sanitized, your talking points approved and your Facebook account set up. Also, drop and take cover, the drama train is headed your way.
    We thank you for your cooperation.

    Reply
  3. Dave Smith says

    February 9, 2015 at 10:36 am

    “I still consider our turnover rate too high. We’ve lost 40 percent of our force in 3.5 years.” -Councilwoman Baughn.

    That equates to a turnover rate of exactly 14%, which indicates our rate is unimaginatively average.

    The obvious conclusion is that every law enforcement agency in the South should be investigated–ignoring advisements provided by experts such as Prof. Leap and sparing no public expense–until we get to the root cause of why law enforcement is a thankless profession.

    Reply
    • Angi Agle says

      February 9, 2015 at 3:09 pm

      Root cause? Gee, dealing with the worst of humanity on a daily basis, tough working hours, a very real risk of injury or death, at a less-than-enticing pay scale? Still, I appreciate Dr. Leap’s putting this into perspective for us. On the upside, our crime rate has gone from a peak of 57% above the national average in 2005 under Beams, to 27% below the national average in 2012, thanks to Chief Akagi’s leadership.

      Reply
      • Matt Bailey says

        February 9, 2015 at 6:14 pm

        But he’s been mean. And he won’t play patty cake with Trina anymore. Doesn’t that mean we should fire him immediately?

        Reply
  4. Raymond Charles Kircher says

    February 10, 2015 at 12:47 am

    Too funny, how some Oak Ridgers have amnesia. It is Paul White and David Beams in accordance with Dave Clark who put operations “Operation Second Strike” and “Operation Prairie Fire” in place that put a huge dent into the crime in Oak Ridge. Least we give credit where credit is due. What operations has been done since then, not any at all, for the continued effort to clean up many criminals in the county by Sheriffs are who has made those operations successful. Sure, you can “say” Akagi is doing his job of keeping people out, including police officers who wish to work for The City of Oak Ridge. 2005 is where that mentality of “You are why Oak Ridge has a black-eye” had its resurrection of bullying by city officials. I do tell them to look in the mirror. That spot isn’t smeared eyeliner.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

More Education News

Covenant Health donating land for Roane State health science center

Covenant Health is donating about 10 acres of land for Roane State Community College's new $75 million regional health science training center in west Knox County. The Knox Regional Health Science and Simulation … [Read More...]

School board approves aviation career path

The Oak Ridge school board on Monday unanimously approved an aviation career pathway that could eventually allow students to get a private pilot's license. The board also approved a contract extension for Superintendent … [Read More...]

Extreme Classroom Makeover applications due Jan. 31

The deadline to submit a video application is about one week away in a contest that awards $25,000 to improve STEM education in public schools in the region. ORAU's Extreme Classroom Makeover is open to third-grade to … [Read More...]

ORCSGirls resumes in-person classes in Oak Ridge, Maryville

Oak Ridge Computer Science Girls (ORCSGirls) is resuming their free in-person coding classes for girls in grades 5-10, a press release said. In March 2020, all classes were switched to be virtual events in response to … [Read More...]

Roane to Tech paves path for transfer students

A relatively new program called Roane to Tech allows students to transfer from Roane State Community College to Tennessee Tech University to complete their last two years of college, and it provides students additional … [Read More...]

More Education

More Government News

Residents discuss Dollar General in Marlow

A handful of Anderson County residents have expressed mixed opinions in government meetings about a reported proposal to build a Dollar General store next to Oliver Springs Highway in Marlow, but the Anderson County … [Read More...]

Read city manager’s retirement letter

This is a copy of the January 17 retirement letter from Oak Ridge City Manager Mark Watson to the seven Oak Ridge City Council members. Since August of 2010, I have been proud to serve the City of Oak Ridge as its … [Read More...]

Oak Ridge Public Library

Library restrooms will be renovated

The restrooms at the Oak Ridge Public Library will be renovated starting February 1. The renovations are expected to be completed by June 1. The renovations will result in increased accessibility under Americans … [Read More...]

Breakfast with Legislators resumes Monday

Breakfast with the Legislators begins this year on Monday. The monthly breakfasts are scheduled each year while the Tennessee General Assembly is in session. They are hosted by the League of Women Voters of Oak Ridge, … [Read More...]

Former AC Commissioner Hitchcock dies

Note: This story was updated at 11:30 a.m. Harry "Whitey" Hitchcock, who represented part of Oak Ridge in three terms on Anderson County Commission, died January 10. A former teacher, he was 76. Hitchcock served on … [Read More...]

More Government

More Police and Fire News

Y-12 celebrates new fire station, emergency operations center

A new fire station and emergency operations center at the Y-12 National Security Complex will replace "severely outdated" buildings that were constructed in the 1940s, about eight decades ago. The new buildings will … [Read More...]

One person seriously injured in Wednesday crash

Two people were taken to a hospital, one with serious injuries, after a crash between a dump truck and a sport utility vehicle in Oak Ridge on Wednesday evening. The crash was reported at about 7 p.m. Wednesday at … [Read More...]

Democratic Women’s Club to hear from AC Emergency Rescue Squad

Representatives of the Anderson County Emergency Rescue Squad will be guest speakers when the Anderson County Democratic Women’s Club meets at 6 p.m. Monday, January 23, at Shoney’s Restaurant, 204 South Illinois Avenue … [Read More...]

You may hear Y-12 sirens when maintenance performed

There will be maintenance work on the public warning siren system in Oak Ridge during the week of January 23, and people in the area might occasionally hear audio from individual sirens around the Y-12 National Security … [Read More...]

Officers can learn how to respond to radiological emergencies, thefts

A new center in west Oak Ridge will train law enforcement officers how to respond to radiological emergencies or potential thefts of radioactive materials. The Y-12 National Security Complex had a ribbon-cutting … [Read More...]

More Police and Fire

Recent Posts

  • UPF construction could cost more, take longer
  • Y-12 celebrates new fire station, emergency operations center
  • One person seriously injured in Wednesday crash
  • Oak Ridge EM prepared for cold weather to prevent failures
  • Covenant Health donating land for Roane State health science center
  • School board approves aviation career path
  • Wildcats name new football coach
  • Free dental, vision, medical services in February
  • Junior Playhouse performs ‘Gingerbread: Hansel & Gretel’ in February
  • Extreme Classroom Makeover applications due Jan. 31

Search Oak Ridge Today

About Us

About Oak Ridge Today
What We Cover

How To

Advertise
Subscribe

Contact Us

Contact Oak Ridge Today

Copyright © 2023 Oak Ridge Today