The Huntsville Police Departments facing a challenge many in the area can relate to: trying to keep up with how fast Alabama’s biggest city is expanding.

“We kind of have the blessing of the city council and the mayor’s office to hire as many as we possibly can,” said police recruitment officer Paul Nordan. According to city spokesman Adam Smith, Huntsville is growing by 458 residents a month.

Officially, the city created 24 new positions for a force that currently has 428 sworn officers. And that’s after HPD added 25 new officers in 2022.

And the number of positions created does not include retirements – “officers who left us last year,” Nordan said.

Fortunately for Nordan and fellow recruiter Kevin Becatti, more than 200 people have applied for the positions the department has open.

“We’ll leave them (positions) open until the end of March,” Nordan said. “My magic number (for applications) right now is 350-400, somewhere in that range.”