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Decorah council directs staff to draft ordinance allowing out-of-state residency for police hires
Summary
Council signaled support for drafting an ordinance to permit non-Iowa residents to be certified and hired as Decorah police officers, citing recruitment challenges in border communities and the Iowa Administrative Code provision allowing cross-border certification when approved by ordinance.
The Decorah City Council agreed in principle to ask staff to draft an ordinance that would permit out-of-state residency for certified police applicants, a step intended to broaden the applicant pool for the police department.
City staff explained the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy allows individuals living outside Iowa to become certified Iowa officers if the hiring agency adopts an ordinance permitting it. The council discussed candidate availability in smaller and border communities and whether a mileage or radius limit should be included.
Chiefs and council members said the trend in many communities is to relax residency requirements to attract more candidates. A councilmember asked if the city could treat proximity as a tiebreaker when choosing among equally qualified applicants; a city attorney said proximity could be a relevant deciding factor if candidates were otherwise equal.
Council consensus was to proceed: staff will draft an ordinance for a future council vote and encourage interested out-of-state applicants to apply, but no guarantees will be made until the ordinance is formally adopted.
What it means: If the council adopts the forthcoming ordinance, the police department could consider applicants who live across the Minnesota border and other nearby locations; the city indicated it could include a mileage restriction or other conditions to address response time expectations.
