The Steelville City Council approved a new policy for the police department’s Cadet Program. The revised policy improves pay scaling for recruits who complete their Peace Officer Standards Training (POST) program.

Under the existing cadet program, the Steelville Police Department (SPD) accepts applications from individuals who are not yet POST-certified. Selected candidates are sent to police academy, where they complete taheir POST certification, which SPD pays for.

Under the old policy, recruits were started at step-one of the department’s pay scale, and remained at step-one after completing their POST certification. Under the new policy, new cadets are upgraded to step-two in the pay scale once their academy training is complete. Then, on their anniversary date they are moved to step-three.

Police Chief Mike Sherman said that the new policy will improve staffing at the department and provide officers with better pay.

“It’s kind of an incentive to go through the academy, and then as soon as you complete the academy, upon completing the academy graduation, you get a step up in pay,” Sherman said.

According to Sherman, the cadet program has generated interest in police work and increased the pool of quality candidates for the police department to draw from.

“We’ve been getting a lot of interest in it, and a lot of people have been coming forward. To go through the academy is rather pricey, and to pay for that out of your own pocket is a huge turnoff. And you may be turning away qualified, great officers because they just can’t afford to do that,” Sherman said.

The current cadet program also involves a month of local training before new cadets are sent to complete their POST certification.

“They start here about a month prior. We’ll go over our policies, have them learn streets. So those are things that are easy that keeps them out of having to deal with law enforcement issues,” Sherman said. “Get them trained on those things prior to going to the academy. So then when they do graduate, they at least have that as a step forward in the learning process.

Steelville Police Chief Mike Sherman said that the police department has experienced staffing issues in the past. Sherman said 2024 was a particularly bad year in which the police department only had three full-time officers, one of whom was out with an injury. The police department was so short-handed that they had to rely on the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office to complete routine coverage of Steelville.

Thanks in part to the new program, the SPD is nearly fully staffed. A full staff includes six road officers, a lieutenant and a police chief. One vacant spot on the force will be filled by a cadet who will soon start their academy training.

During his report, Sherman updated the Steelville City Council on the number of traffic stops that the police department has been conducting and made comparisons to prior years when the department was short-handed.

In 2024, the year that they were operating with two officers, Steelville police conducted a total of 143 traffic stops, and wrote 30 citations.

However, the number of traffic stops conducted by Steelville police officers has increased every year since. In 2025, officers conducted 449 traffic stops and wrote 114 citations. According to Sherman, the police department has conducted 536 traffic stops and written 115 citations so far this year.

Sherman credited the increased number of traffic stops and citations to both a full staff and the work ethic of his officers.