The Kauaʻi Police Commission decided Friday to advance 13 candidates to become the next police chief to the next round, a process that involves asking the contenders to answer five written essay questions about their background and vision for KPD’s future.

All told, 42 people applied for the chief position. That’s down considerably from the 133 applicants that the job vacancy garnered in 2018 when the seven-member commission hired former chief Todd Raybuck, who retired last month after a six-year tenure clouded by controversy.

Another eight applicants were never considered due to a peculiar snafu in which they sent their applications to The Maui News instead of Kauaʻi County. The county had posted a job advertisement with every county newspaper in the state, including The Maui News.

“After applications closed, HR was trying to contact (The Maui News) to close out our bill and we discovered that eight people had actually filed applications for police chief with The Maui News,” County Boards and Commissions Support Clerk Kevin Mince told commissioners Friday. “I cannot explain that to you.”

Mince said he suspects there was a bug with an automated online job application tool that the job candidates must have used. The county learned about the misdirected applications two weeks after the July 7 application deadline but never received them.

Although applications are down 68%, this time around the county is bringing a larger share of the candidate field into the second round. All told, 30% of the total applicants will be asked to participate in the written assessment, up from 15% in 2018. This suggests that while the applicant pool has shrunk from previous chief recruitment efforts, it includes higher caliber contenders.

The county has not yet publicized details about the applicants. Applications were screened by the county Human Resources Department. Responses to the essay questions are due in early August. 

KPD is seeking its next leader as the department faces sinking morale and recruitment and retention issues. Meanwhile, the job criteria for police chief has become stricter — a factor that commissioners said could be eliminating quality candidates.

For the first time, Kauaʻi’s next chief will be required to have a four-year college degree in an administrative field, such as administration of justice or business administration. The new requirement kicked in after 72% of county voters passed a charter amendment in 2020 to add these minimum job requirements in a county governing document that offered few hiring specifics.

Dave Carmichael, a retired California police chief and the executive operations manager for KPD, said during public testimony that the degree requirement is shutting out otherwise excellent candidates.

“I’m aware of a couple candidates that were very interested in the current opening for police chief who were not eligible, who are very successful former police chiefs in California, who have degrees but those degrees just weren’t in this specific field,” Carmichael said.

Commissioners on Friday considered course correcting by putting forth another charter amendment for voters to consider on the 2026 election ballot that would loosen the education requirement. They ultimately decided to take up the issue at a later time. 

Elliott Kalani Ke moved up from his assistant chief position to serve as interim chief. He declined requests for an interview.

The police chief’s salary was increased from $164,192 to $181,800, effective July 1.