Nesquehoning is continuing its quest to find a solution to attract more police officers to the borough.

Last week, borough council approved raising the part-time police officer rates based on experience to get more coverage back into the borough. The department currently has one full-time officer working and two part-time officers.

“We’re trying to pull in experienced officers to do part-time work,” said Mayor Sam Kitchko before listing out his proposal.

He suggested raising the stand-alone hourly salary for a person out of the academy who wants to work and can go out on patrol right away to $26 per hour, up from the current $22 per hour.

For an officer who is working somewhere else full-time and has worked for at least six months to one year at that department then the hourly rate for part-time work in Nesquehoning goes up to $28 per hour.

If someone has one to two years full-time experience, $30 per hour and if the candidate has over two years of full-time experience in another police department, then they would receive $32 per hour.

“We’re covering what we have to do to get police officers in our town,” Councilman Louis Paul said of the proposal. “I agree with having to up the hourly rate to get the quality police officers that we need.”

Council approved the motion to increase the rate.

In other police business, council voted to accept the resignation of part-time officer Allen Strohl and send him a letter of thanks for his time with the borough.