Process Underway To Hire New Police Chief

Oskaloosa Police Chief Jake McGee will be retiring at the end of May, 2018.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – It was recently announced that long-time Oskaloosa Police Chief Jake McGee was going to retire at the end of May.

The Civil Service Commission gathered this week to receive the proposed timeline and hiring process for the position of police chief.

That process is being spearheaded by Stephen Niebur with Moulder & Associates.

Niebur said that a city the size of Oskaloosa typically gets 40 to 50 applications for the police chief position. Of those, 20 to 25 won’t meet the minimum qualifications for the job Niebur explained.

Niebur and his partner will whittle the applications down to 10 or 15 candidates, and the officials that are part of the process will have their input on that list.

The next step would be to cut the candidate pool to 5, after which those individuals and their spouses are brought in for two days of testing.

One of those panels will be police chiefs from around the area. Another panel will be comprised of department heads, while another will have council members and other public citizens.

Each interview in front of those panels typically lasts 40 to 50 minutes per candidate.

The candidates will go back home, and all the groups will then gather over lunch and talk over the pros and cons of each candidate, while the mayor listens in.

From there, the mayor will offer the job to one out of those five candidates after they have been interviewed by four different panels.

The board approved the application process as presented.