At the City Council Strategy Session on Thursday Oct. 13, Interim Police Chief Teresa Biffle presented a troubling report about the Greensboro Police Department’s vacancies.
The City Council didn’t seem fazed by high vacancy rate that, according to Biffle, is going higher, and the councilmembers offered no real solutions.
Biffle stated that 691 officers were authorized for the GPD and there are currently 108 vacant positions in addition to 14 nonsworn posts.
Biffle stated that the situation was going to worsen, as 12 officers graduated in field training from the previous academy class and the academy has 15 officers enrolled. Biffle stated that 18 officers were in the first class, and they are likely to lose another couple before graduating.
As former Police Chief Brian James explained to the City Council several times, the normal attrition rate for the GPD is about 60 officers a year, which means to remain even, each of the two academy classes held during the year needs to graduate 30 officers.
Biffle said that this was 27 more officers than the GPD can expect. The math shows that if the GPD doesn’t get many lateral entries it will drop an additional 33 officers before the end of this year.
Biffle stated that each patrol division contained approximately 100 officers. Therefore, one can see that the GPD is down an entire division in terms of the current vacancy rate. Biffle said that due to a federal grant program, more officers became eligible for retirement over the next few years.
Biffle claimed that in an effort to replace the loss of patrol officers, she pulled detectives from her regular job and sent them on patrol.
Biffle suggested that some of the specialized units could be destroyed completely. She said, “We truly need sworn resources to respond to 911 calls.”
Marikay Abuzuaiter (City Councilmember) suggested that GPD reach out to graduates from Police Citizens Academy. It is a program designed to educate Greensboroans about the Police Department.
Tammi Thurm (City Councilmember) noted that Greensboro offers a bonus, but not a higher salary for officers who have a college degree. She said, “That’s a huge incentive for people not to come to Greensboro if they have a college degree and want to be in law enforcement.”