CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – The Horry County Public Safety Committee held its first meeting of 2019 on Tuesday and the police chief called for new hires.
Horry County Police Chief Joseph Hill gave a look back at 2018 and a look ahead to the upcoming year.
A big part of Chief Hill’s presentation was getting county approval to request grant money to hire some new specialized positions.
One of those would be a narcotics detective.
Chief Hill said as the county grows, so does drug activity, and that detective would help keep up with that.
The department also wants to continue funding two domestic violence detectives, which were a new addition to Horry County police last year.
The public safety committee gave police the green light to apply for grant money for those positions, which would require a 10 percent county match.
“It’s a win-win for the taxpayers, federal government through the pass through of the state funds those positions. We have to look at long term when the grant is over with, can we retain those positions? And, absolutely, yes we can, because we’re a growing county,” Chief Hill said.
Hill told News13 after the meeting they have six vacancies in patrol and a total of ten vacancies agency-wide.
He says the biggest challenge they have is getting the people they’ve hired to the state academy for training.
