Getting Thinner

Missed this from a couple days ago, but nothing really new here:

• Chicago will slow police hiring to roughly 50 recruits per month — and put no classes through the training academy again next summer — to generate the $91 million in “turnover” savings needed to help erase the city’s $1.2 billion budget shortfall, police officials told City Council members Wednesday.

  Two months ago, Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling vowed to resist any attempt to eliminate 984 police vacancies — even after Mayor Brandon Johnson ordered all of his department heads to cut 3% to 5% from their 2025 budgets.

  Instead, Snelling said he would meet the cost-cutting mandate by holding open those 984 police positions, but budgeting less money for those vacancies he knew the city would not be able to fill.

So we're already short those 984 spots. Rahm cut 1,200+ spots from the budget a decade ago. Groot did similar numbers. 

We've been sounding the alarm for years, pointing out that where we used to have eight or ten rapids up along with a second wagon and a traffic car, those haven't been seen on a regular basis for nearly twenty years now. Not to mention Chicago closed three entire Districts. So that "10,000" number is and has been a fantasy for a long time. Depending on what happens in New York City and knowing that CPD steals every NYPD idea (no matter how bad it it), we might even see a further drop.

This amused us though:

• But Ryan Fitzsimons, deputy director for oversight coordination, said police hiring will be “staggered” throughout the year. “We will be pausing some of our recruit classes over the summer, which we did this year, to allow us to better allocate resources out into the field and also tamp down those overtime expenses,” Fitzsimons said.

  If police hiring needs to slow down, Snelling said the “best time for that to happen was during the summer.” “We have less recruits in the academy during the summer. That’s when we have most of our [special] events. We have sworn officers working in the academy. Those people we could use now to go out to some of these events. It reduces overtime,” the superintendent said.

"pausing...recruit classes"? Like hiring them and then what? Laying them off? Forcing them to work details? Because as readers know, the training process is six months long. Someone you hire in January isn't on the street until June. Moving forward:

• February hirees come out in July
• March hirees come out in August
• April hirees come out in September

That covers the summer months. So when does the "pause" occur?

May is also the first opportunity for FOP members to retire and many take advantage of it. You're shortages are going to peak right when hiring is "paused"? 

And that calls this into question:

• For years, the city has allocated $100 million for police overtime, only to blow through it — to the tune of $282.8 million in 2023 and $238 million last year.

  Johnson’s budget caps police overtime at $200 million and requires Council approval for spending that exceeds the cap.

We shall see.