Camden County Wants Towns To Pay Up For Luring Their Cops Away

CAMDEN, NJ (CBS) -- The Camden County police department is going after a number of municipalities across New Jersey, seeking reimbursements for training officers who leave in short order to take jobs closer to home.

State law allows the county to recoup all or part of what they spend on training a cop who leaves for another municipal police position in two years or less.

The department has seen about 100 officers leave, about half to other departments, most down the shore and in North Jersey.

Some 30 municipalities across the state have been contacted about reimbursements that total about $165,000.

"Most of the time these reimbursements are finalized with just a letter to the municipality," Camden County spokesman Dan Keashen told KYW Newsradio. "But in some cases we have had to litigate and most of the litigation has been settled out of court."

That was the case in seven towns. Two of them, Asbury Park and Deptford, are fighting the demand for money.

Keashen says efforts are being made to replace those who leave with candidates who live closer to the city of Camden. There's also a push to change civil service rules to remove people from a state availability list soon after they acquire full time employment with a department.