Chicago City Wire

In a recent commentary, former mayoral candidate Paul Vallas cited record overtime costs for police as a symptom of having too few officers. And, he says, not hiring more police is in effect a way of defunding them.

“To [Brandon] Johnson’s supporters who believe they can defund the police by not filling police vacancies, think about it: the hidden costs are eating the savings,” Vallas wrote. “Last year, police overtime cost the city over $210 million – over 50% more than was paid in 2021, and double what the city budgeted. Plus, the remaining officers are seeing their effectiveness undermined and are being demoralized by a work schedule that regularly cancels days off and extends work shifts without warning."

Citing a WTTW report, Vallas notes that so far this year Chicago has spent $126 million on police overtime. That’s on pace to exceed last year’s overtime payments when the city shelled out a record $210 million. The police complement is down 1,700 since Lightfoot was mayor. Now, there are 1,000 vacancies, and, Vallas says, the city has no strategy for replacing them.

The problem is also leading to fewer arrests.

“Fewer officers is a major factor in why there’s been an over 50% drop in annual arrests since 2019 and an abysmal clearance rate of only 5% for nonfatal shootings with arrests,” Vallas said. “The lack of officers is directly to blame for the dramatic increase in the number of high-priority 911 calls for which the Chicago Police Department did not have a squad car available to respond. Chicagoans implicitly know there is a severe officer shortage.”

He maps out a strategy to turn the problem around:

• Provide CPD hiring testing twice a month online and running two training classes that will run day and night to maximize the output of new officers.

• Allow officers who have transferred to other police departments to return, treating them like officers returning from a leave of absence.

• Incentivize retired CPD officers with investigatory experience to return to serve as analysts to help detectives close cases and to staff a legitimate program to protect witnesses and victims.

• Streamline the process for qualified and experienced police officers to transfer to CPD from other police departments, locally and out of state.

• Recruit members from the military and allow testing online for service members who are on military bases and serving overseas.

• Waive the residency requirement for new recruits, until they are off their probationary status.

• Creating a “Chicago Police Reserve” modeled after the program in the Los Angeles Police Department. Former CPD officers who are now firefighters or hold other city jobs would be invited to be part of the reserve, as would former and current officers from other police departments. They would be available for emergencies, special events and in a crisis.