City raises concerns over staffing shortage, sanitation at Council hearing

DOVER, Del. – City officials in Dover gathered on Friday to talk about the different challenges that are taking center stage in the community.

Those in charge of several departments said there are concerns about sanitation in alleys where people have dumped all sorts of items.

And officials said, it is hard to keep up.

“It’s a little bit of everything,” said City Manager, Donna Mitchell, “We’ve got mattresses, we’ve got chairs, we’ve got trash.”

“They are where people can go in and out of them and dump their trash or whatever may happen there, but we have some that are more serious than others, so we need to take a look at how we can address those issues,” said Mitchell.

According to the city manager, this problem stems from a shortage in staffing.

Some officials said employees are not getting paid enough.

“We haven’t kept up pace with the staffing, with the growth and the city’s infrastructure and the assets that we have to maintain,” said Mitchell.

“So, what our theme is to try to get the staffing up to where it should be for maintaining those systems and that infrastructure,” said Mitchell.

The city manager said the police department also expects a significant loss. Over 20 officers will soon be eligible to retire leaving officials uneasy.

“We have a lot of city employees that can retire,” said Mitchell.

“We have a lot that have retired over the last five years, so we’re still in that cycle, but it does take a police officer 18 months to get an officer through academy and up and running fully trained to be on his own.”

The city manager also said these problems will be brought to the council in May when the new Fiscal Year 2020 budget is presented.