In an effort to recruit a diverse applicant pool of people with good character for the Bowling Green Police Department, the city of Bowling Green took out a full-page advertisement in the Sunday newspaper and is also advertising for police officer applicants on Pandora, a subscription radio service.

“We’re trying different avenues of recruitment and advertising to reach a diverse population,” city human resources Director Mike Grubbs said.

The Bowling Green City Commission voted Tuesday night to hire six new officers, three more than the city currently has in vacancies. While today’s number of vacancies is three, the number of vacancies is constantly changing as people decide to retire, move or take other jobs, Grubbs said.

Because the number of vacancies is subject to change without much notice and the hiring process for officers is lengthy, the city recruits for police officers at least twice a year, Grubbs said. It is about a year from the recruitment phase to the time an officer is tested, academy trained, certified through the state and ready to patrol the streets, and the city doesn’t want to miss out on good job candidates.

Rather than having police officer candidates complete the background check and suitability testing process and then wait several months to attend the police academy, the city hires the candidates after completion of the extensive background check. They are trained in-house for about three months and then sent to the next available academy class at the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training at Eastern Kentucky University, which begins in January for five of the six hired Monday. One of the six is already a certified police officer and will not have to attend the 23-week academy, BGPD spokesman Officer Ronnie Ward said.

“If we wait until we have openings, it will be too hard to fill the positions,” Grubbs said. “It takes so long to get slots in the academy.”

At one time, agencies could reserve spaces for officer trainees at the academy in Richmond. But now, that is no longer allowed. Agencies have to wait until space becomes available, which can be several months from the time a decision is made to hire someone.

This is first time the city has bought a full-page advertisement in its search for police officers. This also marks the first time the city has bought advertising on Pandora, Grubbs said. The city is also advertising in Louisville.

Last year, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into the hiring practices of the police department.

The investigation started after the DOJ determined the number of African-Americans in the BGPD was “significantly lower than would be expected given the relevant demographics,” according to a DOJ letter to the city June 2, 2015. The city’s African-American population is about 14 percent, compared with the 5 percent of the police force that was African-American at the time the investigation was announced.

In response to the investigation, the city formed a Workforce Recruitment and Outreach Committee in September 2015 to help review hiring practices and to help recruit more minorities to the city’s police force as well as other departments. In May, the city received notice that the DOJ had ended its investigation.

— Follow Assistant News Editor Deborah Highland on Twitter at twitter.com/bgdnnewseditor or visit bgdailynews.com.