The South Berwick Police Department has experienced two staff changes of late.
The department is once again looking to fill a vacancy on the force, and Lt. Scott Stephens has been promoted to deputy chief.
Stephens joined the South Berwick Police Department in 2018, was the first officer to be promoted to detective sergeant when the position was created in 2022, and was promoted to lieutenant in 2024.
Chief David Ruger presented Stephens with a new badge, and Stephens’s son and daughter pinned him with an eagle pin after he was sworn in by Town Clerk Tyanne Giambusso during a brief ceremony at the Police Department July 1.
“The deputy chief position will take on the tasks of the current lieutenant position,” Ruger said at the pinning ceremony, “and eventually will pave a new road to a future lieutenant position once we can upgrade the roster with more officers to meet the 2.4 officers per thousand residents.”
During Stephens’ time with the department, Ruger added, he has become a leader the officers can trust, can answer their questions, and can lead them on any major issue.
For the open position in the department, created when an officer left earlier this year, the department is now accepting applications. In the meantime, other resources are being used to fill the gap in coverage, according to Stephens.
“Since school is out for the summer, our school resource officer is filling the void in the schedule,” he said.
The department spent nearly a year recruiting a 12th officer, one of two positions added to the department after voter approval of the $229,000 cost at annual Town Meeting in May 2024.
One position was filled within a few months and the other not until December. Stephens did not answer a request for information on whether it was one of the new hires who left the department or the reason for the officer leaving.
In an interview last year, Ruger said other Maine departments are experiencing the same difficulty recruiting officers as the South Berwick department.
“This is not a profession that one can just walk into one day, receive an acceptance and start the next day,” Ruger said at the time. “Police officers go through extensive hiring practices.”
Information on the hiring process is available on the South Berwick Police Department’s Facebook page.
All South Berwick police officers’ names are listed on the Town’s website under Police Department at https://southberwickmaine.org.
