>>14844859
Alarming’ trends in Phoenix police staffing outlined
cont: https://www.ahwatukee.com/news/article_44fbf86e-3148-11ec-8a67-8329508dfc9a.html
Kurtenbach said the study “is the way for us to more effectively examine how we deploy.”
“You may have seen that there are other jurisdictions that have made the decision to only respond to priority calls for service – what we would call a Priority One,” he told the committee. “We’re not there yet. Neither Chief Williams nor I want to get there and I pray that we don’t.
“But to ensure that we don’t – at least to the extent that we can ensure that we don’t – let’s evaluate some of those call types, which is what ASU is going to do, that drain a significant number of resources and that perhaps could be better suited for other entities.”
Kurtenbach warned that the study could lead to “policy decisions that we just don’t go” on some calls. Williams said she and her aides would return to City Council and brief members before any decision would be made on not answering certain types of calls.
And Kurtenbach added, “I recognize that this blue suit isn’t coming in certain circumstances, but I also want to make sure that our community understands that if we don’t respond, somebody is going to respond to a call and that’s what ASU is going to help us with.”
He said the ASU study was part of the department’s
“holistic approach”
to addressing its staffing crisis. Besides
using trained civilians on certain types of calls,
that approach also could involve rehiring retired officers to handle less stressful and less dangerous types of incidents.
Still, there was no getting around the crisis the department faces as police ranks dwindle, city population rises and calls for service skyrocket.
Council has approved funding for 3,125 sworn positions – lower than the 3,388 sworn positions the department had filled at its peak in 2008.
But of that authorized number of 3,125 sworn positions, the department currently has only 2,776 filled – and only 1,054 are filled patrol positions.
That number of filled patrol positions is 42 fewer than what the department considers minimal patrol staffing, Kurtenbach said.
Furthermore, he explained, “At any one time, we will have in the neighborhood of 90 to 100 officers unavailable in patrol for a variety of reasons. It can be less than 30 days. It can be greater than 30 days due to injuries in throughout the department.”
At the same time, the department currently has a mere 39 recruits spread across two Police Academy classes.
Compounding the staffing crisis is that there are 791 officers who at this time are eligible for retirement.
“You’re going to see that we’re trending toward losing 257 actually filled sworn positions by the end of this year,” Kurtenbach said. “What’s even more alarming is that over the first three months of this fiscal year (July 1-Sept. 30) we had 94 officers separate from the department.”
Of those 94 officers, only 32 retired – meaning the rest either quit the profession or got jobs with other law enforcement agencies, Kurtenbach said.
Kurtenbach said he is hoping that recruitment levels will pick up, suggesting that the pandemic has had a major impact on the number of men and women who want to enroll in the academy.
After hearing Kurtenbach roll through the staffing data, Councilman Jim Waring said, “I think this rises to the level of a crisis.”
“Maybe it’s only a crisis to me but it’s going to be a crisis for all of us in very short order,” Waring said. “I would argue that if you’re retirement-eligible and the job gets harder because you have fewer colleagues to go out and patrol and your caseloads get unmanageable, you’re probably more” likely to retire.
“That is disheartening and it’s sad and it’s definitely something that should be at the very least eyebrow-raising for everybody who pays attention to such statistics,” he added, warning,
“If we don’t take action soon, we’re really going to regret it.”
Kurtenbach said the department overall has had a net loss in the last three years of 119 officers and that projections are “continuing to trend in a very alarming direction.”
He said that over the past year, calls for service have increased by 10,000, calling that “a significant increase with fewer officers responding to those calls from our citizens who are in immediate need.”