The Montgomery County Police Department may soon face greater staffing challenges as dozens of officers are eligible for retirement in 2025 and recruitment efforts aren't sufficient to make up the difference.
The department briefed Montgomery County Council members Monday on the shortages they face.
“The shortage is not new,” Assistant Chief Darren Francke said. “We just now happen to be heading into the worst of it as we have talked to Council a number of times.”
MCPD estimates it could lose 100 officers who are eligible for retirement in 2025. The force has 1,278 sworn officer positions with 166 of those positions vacant. In 2019, there were 1,306 sworn officer positions with only 16 vacancies.
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“Despite all of our staffing challenges, violent crime is down in almost every category,” Chief Marc Yamada said.
New technology like drones and data-driven tweaks to allocating officers have helped.
The department recently updated its police recruitment website with a focus on making it more appealing and easier for people to apply. It also offers a $20,000 signing bonus, but other departments, including D.C., offer even more.
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While revamped recruitment efforts help, it's not enough.
“It takes about 18 months from advertisement to putting a new officer on the street in a way that’s meaningfully increasing sworn strength, and the department faces more losses in 2025, which recruiting itself is not going to immediately address,” Montgomery County legislative analyst Susan Farag said.
The way the public perceives police officers plays a big role in addressing the problem as well, the chief said.
“Each of us has a voice and each of us needs to be cognizant of the impact that voice has on our goals – like the negative rhetoric surrounding police officers and law enforcement, the constant scrutiny and unattainable expectation that the only acceptable level of performance is perfection,” Yamada said.
A workload analysis and staffing study for MCPD is being conducted and is set to be released next summer. The hope is it will help the department find ways to be more efficient as it deals with the staffing shortage.
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