By Adam Pagnucco.
Last month, this site revealed plans by the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) to reduce its presence in the cities of Gaithersburg and Rockville, which have their own police departments. A follow-up post revealed the documentation around that policy change. Today, the council’s Public Safety Committee is exploring the reasons for MCPD’s move and they are related to an issue we have explored before – the county’s police staffing crisis.
The staffing crisis is well known to county leaders. Consider recent history.
1. Back in February, I wrote about how the county cut nearly 30 positions from the police department in FY21, removed officers from schools, eliminated its central auto theft unit and formed a task force that recommended abolishing half the officers in east county. Officers have since returned to some schools in a different capacity, though there is debate about its efficacy.
2. County council public safety analyst Susan Farag has been issuing regular warnings since 2019 about attrition, rising vacancy rates and staff shortages. Her warning in February about resignations, retirements, vacancies, rising response times and MCPD’s inability to conduct adequate traffic enforcement was shocking.
3. According to Farag, the latest police budget contained a “net service reduction.”
Farag’s new packet on the police shift in Gaithersburg and Rockville reiterates these concerns, which remain dire. Let’s start with an extended excerpt explaining the current state of MCPD staffing.
*****
The Council has been briefed regularly on the Department’s staffing challenges. MCPD currently has an authorized sworn complement of 1,282 officers, although only 1,106 are currently filled (176 vacancies, or 14% vacancy rate), not including 27 recruits in the current Academy Class. The Department’s attrition projections, which remain on target, estimate the Department will have up to 216 vacancies (17%) by July 2024 and 239 vacancies (19%) by July 2025.
Currently, 41.7% of sworn officers are eligible for retirement. This includes 15.3% eligible for the Discontinued Service Retirement Program (DRSP) (25+ years of service), 9.7% at full retirement age but not in the DRSP (25+ years of service), and 16.7% eligible for early retirement (have between 20-24 years of service).
The following chart demonstrates current patrol staffing strength. Since the Department’s staffing is in flux, this is just one snapshot in time and subject to change.
While light duty, limited duty, and no duty status are taken into account, there are several more categories of leave that are not included, such as annual, sick, military, administrative, and officers in “Chronic” status. Council staff also advises total filled positions for each Police District include one Commander and several Lieutenants who do not respond to calls. That means that available sworn strength for patrol is fewer than 652 officers, split among three shifts, for the entire County on any given day.
*****
Let’s combine the data on vacancies above with data on past vacancies from footnotes provided by Farag.
January 2022: 46 sworn vacancies
February 2023: 129 sworn vacancies
April 2023: 108 sworn vacancies
Today: 176 sworn vacancies, 14% rate
July 2024, projected: 216 vacancies, 17% rate
July 2025, projected: 239 vacancies, 19% rate
This is an explosion of police officer vacancies in just three and a half years.
What’s happening now is that MCPD is reducing its presence in Gaithersburg and Rockville as of November 1, leaving it to the city governments to fill the gaps. It’s unclear as to whether those cities will be reimbursed by the county and how long it will take for them to add officers.
But this goes beyond Gaithersburg and Rockville.
MCPD is projecting that its vacancy rate will rise even more over the next two years. Reducing its staffing in Gaithersburg and Rockville is low hanging fruit since those cities already have their own police departments and presumably have the resources to hire more officers. But most of the rest of the county does not have city governments. When staffing gets stretched in places like Silver Spring, Wheaton, Bethesda, Burtonsville, Glenmont, Aspen Hill, Montgomery Village, Germantown, Olney, Clarksburg, Potomac, Damascus and other areas without municipal governments, there won’t be any city police departments to step in to fill the gaps. There will only be reductions in police service. And all of us, including the county’s elected officials, can see it coming.
This is absolutely one of the most critical issues facing county leaders today.