Sgt Jack hit the nail on the head on this one. The political climate right now in Massachusetts toward LE alone, not to mention the rest of the country is bleak. Now add the looming police reform bill hanging over our heads that the Governor stated he will sign when it hits his desk. This maybe a sign to re-access getting into LE or at least pump the brakes to wait and see.
Right now the future is unsure for part-time and reserve police officers in Massachusetts. Several things have been predicted for
when this bill is singed, some are good, some are bad, and others are absolutely devastating especially for departments west of 495 that relay heavily on part timers. Some departments in that neck of the woods (pun intended) consist of all part-time officers including the Chief of police so what do we do then?
Some of the rumblings I have heard are:
A, Current sworn part-time officers will be grandfathered in as certified full time police officers with no further training required. With the exception of in-service stuff.
B, Current sworn part-time officers with be initially certified but will be required to attend a bridge program to become a full time certified officer. This begs the question if you are already working as a part-time officer and attend a bridge program for your full time certification in your department (X), can you later leave that department and go to work for department (Y) as a full time officer, or will they require the officer to attend a full time academy as a new hire?
C, Current sworn part-time officers will be eliminated altogether and you will see a push toward either regional policing, a larger MSP force to cover the smaller towns (more then what they do now) or we could see a proposal to start utilizing various sheriff departments as the primary law enforcement in certain counties in the Commonwealth.
D, They merge us all into the state police and we become troopers overnight akin to the 1992 merger Reg/Mdc/Met..
(I'm sorry.. I had to throw that jab in to the boys and girls in the French and electric blue)
Now with that said I attended the Boylston reserve academy in 1999 and the tuition was something around 300 bucks. I have heard it has exponentially increased as well as the amount of hours required to complete the course. So right now it might be wise to save up for a full time class or even better keep apply to every department in the Commonwealth with hopes they will send you on the towns dime. Things are really unstable right now.