It turns out that the combination of low pay and high standards doesn’t make the Albemarle County Police Department an attractive employer, Megan Davis writes in the Daily Progress. They’ve had a hiring freeze in place for a few years, their starting pay is 13% considerably below market, and they recently increased their hiring standards, which probably explains why they’ve got less than 120 officers, when they need 150 to meet the county standard of 1.5 officers per 1,000 residents. The county has increased the starting salary by 7%—about half of what’s necessary to meet the market rate—but the Board of Supervisors doesn’t want to lower hiring standards, and it’s fairly unlikely that they’ll provide the funding to improve pay for both new and existing officers.