Seattle Police Hiring Falling Behind, Affecting Overtime Costs and Goal of Hiring More Women

by Lauryn Bray

The Seattle Police Department (SPD) will likely not meet its hiring goals this year, and low staff numbers are driving increasing overtime costs and jeopardizing its goal of building a police force made up of 30% women, the City Council's Public Safety Committee heard Tuesday, May 28.

"The original staffing plan, which accompanied the budget last fall and which the budget is based on, assumed that the department was going to hire 31 police recruits in the first quarter of 2024. They actually hired 11," said Greg Doss, council central staff member. At this rate, SPD will not be able to meet its quota of hiring 120 officers before the end of 2024.

However, SPD's retention of officers seems to be slowly improving. SPD anticipated losing 27 officers this quarter — according to Doss' presentation, only 22 officers left SPD.

"Retention is completely shifting. It used to be, over the last few years, that retention was the problem with SPD. It's not so much the case anymore. We are seeing separations at lower than projected rates," said Doss.

Since SPD is still hiring fewer officers than desired, fully trained officers are working overtime to compensate for the department's lack of workforce. "Pretty much all of the overtime that's worked in the precincts is for what they call 'minimum staffing,' which is coverage of sick leave [and] augmentation to make sure there's enough officers to answer 911 calls," said Doss.

Doss also said SPD routinely overspends its overtime budget and is on track to do so again this year. "Last year, SPD spent $39.6 million [on overtime pay] when its budget was $31 million," said Doss. Since the start of the year, SPD has spent 24% of its overtime pay budget. With more public events and the expectation that crime increases during the summer, SPD is likely to overspend again this year.

"There's very much seasonality here. It's the event season and the summer season, when crime has an uptick, that they really use a lot of overtime, so the fact that it's 24% now is indicative of the fact that they're running over their budget," said Doss.

Council President Sara Nelson expressed worries that with low staff numbers, SPD will not be able to do proactive policing and will only be able to respond to emergency calls. "If we have removed the investigators from the units and put them in patrol, then that means we cannot do proactive policing — investigation to prevent additional crimes down the way. We're only responding to emergencies," Nelson said.

Doss also presented data on police response times. This quarter, the average response time was 11.4 minutes for a Priority 1 call, 75.7 minutes for a Priority 2 call, and 154.5 minutes for a Priority 3 call. It's SPD's goal to respond to all Priority 1 calls in under seven minutes. This quarter, only 44% of all Priority 1 calls received a response in under seven minutes.

Nelson asked Doss if response times would reduce with the implementation of the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) Department. Doss said that because of the City's contract with the Seattle Police Officers Guild (SPOG), which mandates that the CARE response team can only be dispatched to a location with an officer, officers are still having to respond to calls.

"Over time, as the alternative response program develops, and if we move past the dual dispatch phase to the sole responder phase where a civilian is only responding, then it would definitely have an impact on response times, because you wouldn't have as many officers going to as many calls," Doss said.

Nelson asked Doss what it would take to change that. Doss said there would need to be a revision to the contract with SPOG. "The MOU [memorandum of understanding] with SPOG right now mandates that the CARE department can only go if mutually dispatched with an officer, and then the officer has to clear the scene for safety reasons before the alternative responder can get on scene," he said. The City's contract with SPOG cannot be renegotiated until the end of 2025.

Councilmember Cathy Moore suggested that SPD bring back the community service officer program to alleviate problems caused by a lack of patrol officers. "This, to me, argues for really looking to expand our community service officer program, which is, to some extent, an alternative response, but they can really fulfill that role of being eyes on the street, knowing individuals, and being able to report back to leadership about what's happening out there," said Moore.

Councilmember Rob Saka asked about "hot spot" areas, using Alki Beach as an example, and if there was any way to measure how much overtime is being spent responding to 911 calls in these areas. Doss responded by saying he will look into it: "The data-driven policing section tracks that information — maybe not the overtime hours, but the number of hours spent in general at these hot spot locations — and so that's something I'm looking into with the department," he said.

Since it takes a year to get a new recruit fully trained and on the street, Saka also said SPD should focus on attracting more lateral hires. "I think it's important that we have a blended strategy that focuses heavily on going after experienced lateral officers," he said.

The committee also received an update on the progress of the 3030 Initiative, aimed at increasing the number of women police officers.

Rebecca Boatright, executive director of analytics and research at SPD, addressed the council with an update on SPD's efforts to comply with the 3030 Initiative. On March 25, 2021, Chief Adrian Diaz signed a letter of commitment to the 3030 Initiative on behalf of SPD. Since then, in compliance with the initiative, SPD conducted internal surveys and focus groups conducted by Lois James of Washington State University to better understand women officers. The research identified five main factors driving women away from SPD: masculine culture; expectations for women and double standards; pregnancy and child care; promotion and leadership; and exclusion and pigeonholing.

"We are working toward putting a proposal together for department child care options," said Boatright. "Certainly, SPD officers are not the only 24/7, 365 day shift workers in the city, so the challenges that face SPD are not unique."

In the meantime, SPD has a part-time program for patrol officers who need to work less hours due to caregiving responsibilities, in addition to their family and medical leave programs. And SPD continues to modify recruitment strategies to appeal to women in an effort to comply with the 3030 Initiative. In addition to the Washington Women in Trades Fair, SPD is reaching out to women at military bases, like Camp Pendleton, and doing in-person recruitment at places like the monthly hiring events at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"The part-time program for patrol officers is a program that enables officers to work part-time for up to two years. It is most often utilized by new mothers, and up to 20 officers at once across the city can engage in that program," said Detective Elizabeth Wareing, bias crimes coordinator for the homicide and assault unit. Wareing also said SPD offers paid parental leave for new parents for up to 12 weeks, as well as sabbatical leave, which can be up to a year.

Since the SPOG contract with the City was finalized, SPD has received an increase in daily applications. "This time last year, SPD was receiving an average of 5.63 applications per day. Before the new contract was signed in the run-up, there was an increase in applications of 9 to 10 applications per day. Currently, SPD is receiving an average of 15.29 applications per day for our current exam cycle," said Wareing.

Wareing also said that if SPD maintains this rate of applicants, it will hit its goal of hiring 125 officers in a year. "Based on over 10 years of data, maintaining about 14 applications per day over the course of a year would produce approximately 125 hires," she said.

Additionally, Senate Bill 6157, signed by Gov. Jay Inslee allowing DACA recipients to apply for civil service positions, will go into effect on June 6. "There's recent state legislation that will allow 'Dreamers' to apply for law enforcement careers," Wareing said. "There's marketing, policy, and procedure under development for this launch."

Wareing also said SPD's recruiting team has planned trips to visit historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) this fall. "We are also recruiting at community events, such as the Rainier Beach Back2School [Bash], Ethiopian Independence Day, and a Filipino cultural event called Pista sa Nayon."

📸 Featured Image: Seattle Police officers on motorcycles in 2017. Photo is attributed to Adam Cohn (under a Creative Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license).