Lean Times Getting Leaner

Back in the 1990's the Department used to print (yes, actually print) a seniority list of ALL Department employees. It was the size of a small telephone book. It was made up of two lists actually - one by seniority and one alphabetical. We know this because we saw it, paged through it, and "acquired" a few pages out of it at the time. Our seniority in that book was twelve thousand and some change. We probably still have it somewhere.

When we left, that number had dwindled to under one-thousand and was an electronic .pdf document. But the cops at the back of the list were only in the high nine-thousands. That means the Department itself had shrunk by at least three thousand from our rookie days to our dinosaur days.

It's about to get worse:

• Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling vowed Wednesday to resist any attempt to eliminate altogether 984 police vacancies — even as Mayor Brandon Johnson struggles to erase a $1.15 billion shortfall after two straight years of deficit spending.

  Johnson has ordered all of his department heads to cut 3 to 5% from their 2025 budgets.

  Instead of cutting vacancies, Snelling said he plans to meet that $92 million mandate through a hiring slowdown. He plans to hold open those 984 police positions, but budget less money for those vacancies he knows the city won’t be able to fill.

If we remember - it was either the 9.5 digit midget or Groot - actually cut 1,200 vacancies and then declared the Department was "fully staffed." This was on top of a previous cut of 800 under Shortshanks. We made much fun of their "accounting" back then and started posting the worksheets from assorted Districts. Where we were, we used to have a dozen-to-fifteen beat cars, almost as many rapids, two wagons and a traffic car. After being "fully staffed" we had zero-to-two rapids, one wagon and a traffic car four days a week. Fun times indeed.

• “We do understand… that there’s a budget crisis and everybody is going to have to take a haircut,” Snelling told the City Council’s Budget Committee Wednesday during mid-year budget hearings. “I just want to be careful that we don’t just eliminate positions. But if those positions can sit there funded at a much lower rate and we know that we’re not going to be able to hire those people, that would be an effective way of saving dollars.”

  Budget Chair Jason Ervin (28th) asked Snelling how he could possibly absorb a $92 million hit without impacting police service.

  “We don’t,” the superintendent said.

There are only a few ways forward here:

• disbanding of CAPS, Consent Decree / Constitutional Policing units;
• trimming the bloated Academy staff;
• a true gutting of HQ and office house mice;
• Homan Square units and re-imagining tact teams;
• a new schedule - ten or twelve hour days;
• a complete remapping of the Districts and Areas. 

And every legal citizen better get a gun. Or two.