By Adam Pagnucco.
In February 2023, I wrote about police staffing for the first time. Back then, I noted an escalating series of warnings issued by county council analyst Susan Farag, who covers the Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD), dating back to 2019. The warnings were clear and increasingly urgent: recruit classes were insufficient to keep up with staffing needs, the department was understaffed relative to population, attrition was up and vacancies were rising.
Today, we are living in the reality of those trends coming to fruition.
Here are a few findings from Farag’s latest memo to the council’s Public Safety Committee on police staffing.
Filled sworn position strength is down 16% since 2019.
The chart below shows filled sworn positions in MCPD since 2015.
Farag writes:
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Concerned about potential operational impacts of both sworn and professional vacancies, the Committee has held regular staffing updates to monitor the Department’s staffing levels, including separate briefings on critical areas such as Emergency Communications Center staffing. Recruitment and retention remain persistent challenges, and the Department continues to struggle to fill positions at a pace that offsets ongoing attrition.
To offset reduced staffing levels, the Department has increasingly relied on overtime. However, sustained high overtime usage raises long-term concerns regarding officer safety, wellness, and overall effectiveness.
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MCPD’s problems are worse than the national average.
The chart below compares change in sworn staffing between MCPD (in blue) and the national average as reported by the Police Executive Research Forum (in orange). That nationwide trend is down because police staffing issues are widespread but MCPD’s trend is worse.
Police officer enrollment in the DSRP pension program has jumped this year.
The Discontinued Service Retirement Plan (DSRP) allows officers to remain county employees for a maximum of three years, accumulate a DSRP account collecting the equivalent of the officer’s retirement benefit, and then receive the DSRP balance at retirement in addition to ongoing pension benefits. Back in 2023, the county council voted to improve pension benefits starting on January 1 of this year, leading to fears of a police staffing bomb. While regular retirements are down so far compared to last year, officer enrollment in DSRP has jumped. These officers must leave county employment by 2028, exacerbating staffing problems. The chart below shows DSRP enrollment since 2021.
Overtime use has exploded.
The table below shows budgeted and actual police overtime expenditures from FY16 through the first quarter of FY26. The most recent three fiscal years are on track to see the largest overtime expenditures ever by MCPD.
Farag writes:
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The primary impact of short staffing has been increased reliance on overtime. As noted earlier, the Department has maintained relatively constant response times for both priority and routine calls for service. However, overtime expenditures have increased by more than 115% from FY22 to FY25. In FY25, the Department overspent its $13.7 million overtime appropriation by almost $11 million. So far this year, the Department has spent 44% of its FY26 overtime appropriation through the first quarter of the fiscal year. Overtime reliance at this level indicates a structural staffing gap rather than a temporary adjustment and raises concerns about fiscal sustainability and officer wellness.
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Additionally, the chart below shows trends in overtime as percent of salary (blue bars) and vacancy rate (orange line). The relationship is clear: MCPD is increasing overtime as a response to rising vacancies. Farag is right to raise concerns about this.
The news is not all bad. MoCo’s crime rates are gradually falling to pre-pandemic levels and are lower than statewide averages. Response times are relatively stable despite rising vacancies, reflecting overtime use. And the staffing bomb feared last year has turned out to be more of a small grenade, at least so far. Things could be worse.
But this police staffing headache is now several years old and is not close to being resolved. With crime more of an issue for voters than it was in the past, adequate police staffing must be a top-tier issue in the coming county elections.