(Radio Iowa) – The Commissioner of the Iowa Department of Public Safety, Roxann Ryan, says she has heard from a lot of local and county law enforcement agencies that are having a hard time filling open positions. “I think every law enforcement agency is struggling with recruitment. And not just law enforcement — I think most employers are struggling to find the kind of people that they really are looking for,” Ryan says.  She says the state organization has not seen the same issue. “I have to say in the last basic academy that we had, we had hundreds of people who applied and we were not able to hire everybody who was qualified to work,” Ryan says, “I am going to knock on wood — we have not had trouble getting people to come and work at the Department of Public Safety.”

Ryan says the search for qualified people seems to lead to a lot of turnover in other state departments. “We’re seeing that more and more in agencies, that people are moving from one agency to another agency during their careers,” according to Ryan. “We don’t see that as often in our department. Usually we have people who start at a fairly young age and then stay until retirement.”  Ryan says they do see officers looking to move to the Iowa State Patrol or other positions in the Department of Public Safety. “In the last basic academy we had 24 and I think we had six that had previously worked as law enforcement officers. And in the academy before that we had 22 and I think that we had four that previously worked at another agency,” Ryan says.

She says those officers make a decision soon after entering law enforcement that they want to work for the state. “Usually they will transfer relatively early in their careers — so they are usually under 30 when they come to the Department of Public Safety,” she says. Ryan is retiring after working in the department for more than ten years. She joined the Department of Public Safety in 2006 as a lawyer and was appointed Public Safety Commissioner in 2015 by then Governor Terry Branstad.