NEDERLAND — Nederland Police Department’s ranks grew by three recently with the addition of newly sworn in officers Adam Arceneaux, Alex Bell and Layne Verdine.

Their journey to become officers with the NPD is a bit different from previous paths taken. Assistant Police Chief Andy Arnold said a new position was created in the city called a cadet and these three were able to be paid while going through the police academy, their uniforms and equipment paid for as well.

All of this was contingent on them successfully completing the required education, receiving their certificate and passing the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement state exam.

“This was a very huge success in the way these cadets came in, and we will train them for our community,” Arnold said. “We’ve already been working with them. They had been employees for the last five months with mentors assigned to each of them at the PD, and myself and an administrative sergeant would go and check up on them and help out with Academy where we could.”

Training

While at the Police Academy at Lamar Institute of Technology, the new officers learned the “whole gamut” Arnold said, starting off with ethics and criminal justice process, firearms, defensive tactics, driving techniques and family and juvenile codes.

The newly hired officers went through schooling from Aug. 5 to Dec. 13 and hold 15 college credit hours. The TCOLE exam is a three-hour test with 50 questions that was comprehensive of what was learned in the academy.

Cost of the program, staffing

Part of each cadet’s tuition was paid for by the city, and the South East Texas Regional Planning Commission also pitched in to pay some tuition.

Then there are books, equipment and uniform fees that come to about $2,000.

Each cadet earned a salary of $17.50 per hour. Now as officers, they earn $26.39 an hour.

The addition of the three new officers brings NPD up to 27 full time employees. They did have one retirement so there is a need of one more officer — which will not come through the academy — to bring them to full staff at 28.