05-24-2021 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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WS – Item 1 WORK SESSION STAFF REPORT Work Session Item 1 Date: May 24, 2021 To: City Council From: John Swenson, Public Safety Director Re: Police Division Staffing Background During the last 18 to 24 months staff has been engaged in a nearly continuous hiring processes for the position of Police Officer in an effort to reach and maintain full staffing. We have also lost staff due to medical reasons and we are currently working through a staffing shortage at the rank of Sergeant due to a medical reason. These staff shortages have led to the filling of shifts with overtime and the staffing shortage at the Sergeant rank has created supervision gaps, increased workload for other department supervisors, and scheduling conflicts with vacation usage. Staff is recommending that we temporarily promote/detail an officer to the rank of Sergeant to alleviate some of the staffing shortage issues we are currently experiencing. This would be a temporary promotion until the Sergeant returns to work or, if needed, a promotional process is completed to fill the Sergeant vacancy permanently. Staff is also recommending, the start date of the 28th police officer position that is authorized to start on September 1, 2021 be moved up to a July 1, 2021 start date. There is an on-going police hiring process taking place currently and there are good viable police officer candidates available in this process. This would also eliminate the need to engage in another police officer hiring process. The recommended staffing adjustments would not increase the 2021 adopted Police Division budget. Staff has completed an analysis of the Police Division personnel expenditures to date in 2021 and determined that based on the personnel vacancies to date in the Police Division there would be $93,523 available to fund this recommendation. Staff estimates that the cost of starting the 28th police officer on July 1, 2021 versus September 1, 2021 would be approximately $12,619. The temporary promotion of a police officer to a sergeant position is difficult to estimate because we are not able to determine return to work date, but we know that even the worst case scenarios would not exceed $93,523.