For more than a year now, 11 News has reported how Houston police have struggled with a shortage of officers.

The numbers showed how the number of cadets graduating from the police academy can’t keep up with the number of retiring officers.

KHOU-TV

More officers will be on the streets.

Now Houston police have rolled out a program to hire retired officers for part time jobs.

The first retirees began training Monday at Houston’s downtown police headquarters.      

“We look at the background of the particular retired officer—how long they’ve been retired, what their particular service record is and the like—and find a job suitable for that officer,” said Houston Mayor Bill White.

11 News obtained an internal memo from Chief Harold Hurtt informing Mayor White that, by August 2, 199 retired officers had applied for part-time jobs and that 190 of them were retired HPD officers. 

Nine were retirees from other law enforcement agencies.

The retirees will not work on the street like full-time officers.

But city officials said the part-timers will free up police for more active duty.

Jerry Defoor is president, Houston Police Retired Officers Association, “It’s probably going to be a majority of those folks will be in investigations.  That’s where there’s a tremendous amount of pressure on the department, because there’s not enough folks available to do the background of the cases that don’t have a lot of detail.”

An association of retired Houston officers helped put this program together.

“They say once a marine always a marine.  Well, once a police officer or a peace officer, always a peace officer,” said Bill Elkin, Executive Director, Houston Police Retired Officers Association.

Now it seems HPD’s newcomers will get some help from old-timers they’ve come to replace.

Some officers still on the force privately said they don’t like this idea and think Houston just needs to hire more full time cops.

Of those who reported for work Monday, 24 were retired officers.

Their first duty was a sort of refresher course on new policies and procedures.

But beyond that, it seems they really won’t need much training.

After all, these are professionals who did  their jobs for decades.

And on average, most have been retired only five to seven years.