Stearns County Sheriff Soyka Gives End Of The Year Recap

ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- If you are looking for a career change in the new year, working in the Stearns County Sheriff's Office might be an option for you.

Sheriff Steve Soyka says they are doing okay in their patrol division, but they have a few openings in the dispatch department. And, he says they are always looking for correctional officer staff.

That is probably the section of the agency that is the least staffed right now, for no real reason.

Soyka says as long as you are a high school graduate you can apply to be a correctional officer. All of the training is done in-house with two to three weeks of classroom instruction and then working with a field training officer on the floor. He says you do need to be a people person to be able to work with lots of different types of people.

Earlier this year the Stearns County Sheriff's Office was one of several law enforcement agencies to receive a state grant to hire a new patrol officer. Soyka says 50 people applied for the program, which will pay for the new hire's law enforcement training.

Not everybody is going to get an interview.  We took a look at degrees, and we have to factor in veterans, so that bumped some people up.

That application process has closed.

The person selected will have a choice to either go to Alexandria or Hennepin Technical College for their training.

The cities of Sartell and Waite Park also received state grants to hire someone looking to change careers.

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Back in November, voters in Stearns County approved a referendum to build a new justice center. Soyka says a lot of decisions still need to be made and he says schematic designs should be brought to the county commissioners in the next month. The commissioners still need to select a location as well. But, he says if all goes well they should start construction this summer.

If all the decisions get made on the right timeline, we could start moving earth by late summer, with major construction in 2026 and 2027, to be in there by 2028.

Soyka says some components of the new justice center like generators need to be ordered now because there's a two-year waiting list to get them.

On Friday, Soyka was on the News @ Noon Show on WJON with Jim Maurice.

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