In the face of a proposed city budget from the mayor that would eliminate 142 positions from the Cleveland Police Department, city leaders said on Friday that the city is investing in the police force in other ways, and that recruiting new officers is historically difficult.
For the first time since before the pandemic, the revenues in a Cleveland mayor’s estimated budget exceed expenditures, giving the city an estimated structural balance of $225,000, according to Chief Finance Officer Ahmed Abonamah, one of the city leaders who attended the city's conversation and Q&A on the 2023 Mayor’s Estimate Budget for public safety and police staffing.
City-wide, 257 vacant positions were eliminated in the 2023 budget as compared to last year, leaving 650 vacant positions in the general fund operating budget, or a 16% vacancy rate, Abonamah said.
In the Cleveland Police Department, the budget eliminates 142 positions, bringing the total number of budgeted positions from 1,640, which has been the historic number of uniformed officers over the years, to 1,498, Abonamah said.
News 5 has been reporting on CPD's recent staffing issues since last year. Watch Investigator Sarah Buduson's report from last night on the department's proposed elimination of police positions:
RELATED: Cleveland cutting 142 police positions
That still leaves 206 vacant positions in the Cleveland Police Department — positions which, according to Police Chief Wayne Drummond, will “take a long time” to fill.
“If history — at least the recent history last couple years — is any indication of trying to get people to want to become police officers, we're competing with a small pool of people,” Drummond said. “When I say ‘we,’ that's law enforcement professionals across the United States of America, from California to Connecticut to New York to Florida and so forth. We're all competing for the small, small pool of individuals that want to become police officers.”
Drummond said that in his 34 years on the job, he’s never experienced such an issue finding people who want to become police officers, which, he said, is troubling.
“Part of it is the vilification of our law enforcement officers in general, and also just a change in society with individuals where they're just not going into the field of law enforcement,” he said.
Drummond said that when he took the test to become a Cleveland Police officer 34 years ago, about 5,000 people did so.
“Today, we're lucky to get 200 people to take a test. And we're trying to seat a class of 50, and that's almost impossible,” he said.
Drummond said that in a review with Director of Public Safety Karrie Howard, they were only able to find 11 individuals who were qualified to become law enforcement professionals in Cleveland.
“Our numbers that we started with were small to begin with. So that's the dilemma that we face, trying to get qualified individuals or people that want to become law enforcement officers," Drummond said.
Howard said that in spite of the flagging recruitment numbers and elimination of open positions, the officers with CPD are “doing the work to keep the city safe.”
“Something that the public really is recognizing is that empty seats, vacancies, don't keep the city safe,” Howard said.
Cleveland Ward 8 Councilman Michael Polensek, who was invited to the Q&A Friday, took issue with that claim.
“What I do know is that we cannot fill critical investigator positions. We cannot fill homicide, traffic, sex crimes, domestic violence. We cannot fill the critical units. The chief is struggling to fill those,” he said.
Polensek said that the city needs to get an aggressive recruitment and marketing plan going, because, as Drummond has indicated to him, it “pains him to not have the numbers that he needs.”
Howard disagreed with Polensek’s assessment that the department "cannot fulfill its basic responsibilities at this point."
“I do want to say that that's not accurate, when you say that the division of police cannot fulfill basic functions,” Howard said. “That's absolutely not true. We are we're filling basic functions, we are. Which is evident, and I heard it yesterday.”
He said that violent crime numbers are down because of “the hard work, precision and strategic work of the management of the division of police. So we are meeting those basic functions.”
News 5 Investigators reviewed recent crime statistics from the city of Cleveland.
Homicide is down 9% year over year. Rape is down 4%. Felonious assault is down 13%.
But robberies are up 4% and grand theft auto is up 32%.
“The city of Cleveland is safe because of the hard-working men and women in the division and this budget reflects an investment in policing,” Howard said.
But shortages are being felt at the ground level, says Union President Jeff Follmer.
“We have a lot of officers working long hours. We probably have lesser crimes not being investigated. Our detective bureaus are way overworked,” Follmer said.
Then-mayoral candidate Bibb told News 5 in September 2021 he wanted to do a better job deploying Cleveland’s officers.
"I want to make sure at least 70% are walking the beat and visible in our neighborhoods and the other 30% are in desk jobs,” Candidate Bibb said.
News 5 Investigators asked Howard and Chief Drummond what has been done.
"When Mayor Bibb, then-candidate Bibb, was campaigning, there was information he didn't have access to and then having a greater understanding of the environment that we're in with recruitment,” Howard said.
Howard says Mayor Bibb has pivoted to recognize challenges with attrition and recruitment and says getting more officers on the streets and out of administrative work takes time.
“That takes time to evaluate that to see how many civilians need to come in to do the job of maybe 50 officers,” Howard said.
"We have to make sure we bring in officers the budget can support — the budget right now is at 1,498. We're going to do everything in our power throughout recruitment to hire, and again, important — hire qualified individuals,” Chief Drummond said.
The 2023 budget, Howard said, is reflective of an ongoing investment in the police department, including a 7% raise for current officers, a new $90 million police headquarters, and more tools and technology to help officers do their jobs.
One such technology employed by Cleveland is ShotSpotter, which aims to help police pinpoint the exact location of gunfire. The program, which was launched over three square miles in 2020 in the 4th District as a test pilot, is being expanded throughout the city.
Watch our report from last year when the city council was discussing the expansion of the ShotSpotter program:
RELATED: Cleveland City Council discusses $2.7 million ShotSpotter expansion
The city is also working to reduce the number and types of calls that uniformed officers respond to through a $5 million investment in the co-responder model, Howard and Abonamah said.
“One of the things that we have commonly heard is that officers respond to everything — they're being called and asked to respond to things that perhaps officers should not. And that's where the call co-responder care response program comes into play, so that we can give those who are suffering mental health crises appropriate attention — the services that they need. And that doesn't always require a police response,” Howard said.
The department’s 2023 budget also includes a data crime analyst for each district. Howard cited Operation Clean Sweep as an example of how intelligence resulted in the arrests of hundreds of people, some violent offenders.
“We're heading into what modern policing looks like,” Howard said. “And the administration, the folks on this call are providing an investment in police.”
Watch the full discussion and Q&A here
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
