Crime and Crisis: It's time to leave the status quo of staffing behind

It’s time to leave the status quo of staffing behind?

by Justin J. Frank, MBA

The most critical challenge currently facing the City of Philadelphia’s public service departments is recruitment. Money is not the issue, but at the same time, it is. Current employment levels are so low that there are not enough police officers, firefighters, medics, and dispatchers to satisfy minimum staffing recommendations – even if all current employees agree to work overtime on a regular basis.?

The city’s current staffing crisis is a classic example of the law of diminishing returns. We can’t fill police overtime posts some days. The officers are exhausted from overtime (although the money isn’t bad at time-and-a-half), and even when officers work overtime, understaffed shifts remain commonplace. Special units are being detailed back into the districts – a triage effort that moves members of the force out of essential support functions dealing with disciplinary code violations, court attendance, budget tracking, Audits and Inspections Unit, and many other units. These officers do not want to do these assignments. They worked hard to be of service in these important roles. They should be able to have a life and rest if they choose. But if you know anything about Philly cops, they are resilient, to say the least.

At any given time, the Philadelphia Police Department may have approximately 10% of the available staff in an injured on-duty status. There are officers who have yet to make it back from injuries sustained during protests over the last few years.? Many have come back after long recoveries; many more will be back after long days and hours convalescing while completing physical rehabilitation and doctor visits; still others will return prior to fully recovering from their duty-related injuries. Officers are frequently assigned to working part-time and full-time in limited-duty positions throughout police operations rooms citywide. It is just part of the job: those who work it are prone to serious bodily injury and even death. Moreover, there is an expectation to return to the law enforcement mission as soon as possible. This is the nature of the guardian job and it is policy as well. It is a lot to ask of someone to get back into the fight after being physically injured performing on the job – especially knowing it can happen again. As such, Philly cops are resilient, to say the least.

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Despite the clear and present danger caused by understaffing, the civil service process continues to make recruitment a nightmare. Everyone on an eligible civil service list must be contacted and given every opportunity to progress. The process is prolonged. There is a reading test and physical agility testing. However, for every approximately 1,000 interested applicants, only 300 – 30% – show up. And 30 of those candidates – 10% – fail the reading comprehension and a large portion of the remaining candidates have trouble passing the physical agility test. In a best-case scenario, after background checks are performed, there will be roughly 30-40 qualified recruits to train for about a year before they hit the street – a 3% success rate. Many leaders at the Philadelphia Police Department and Philadelphia Sheriff's Office have worked tirelessly to improve the recruitment process. For example, Sheriff Rochelle Bilal instituted training programs and helped candidates with reading comprehension to improve a candidate's odds of passing the recruitment process.

To solve this staffing crisis, three key obstacles must be overcome. First, the City of Philadelphia must take the necessary – and expensive – steps to become more of a top destination for the best candidates. The bottom line is that surrounding municipalities and counties offer more financially attractive options to candidates. Their pension systems are better and can feature lifetime medical benefits and higher retirement percentages in pensions for fewer years of service. Most are in the range of 75% for 25 years, and in some cases, patrol officers are maxing out in 5 years with a $150,000-$175,000 base salary in some townships. Which would you choose? 25 years for 50% of your salary, or 25 years for up to 75% of your base pay when you retire??

In smaller townships and agencies the legislative process is much easier and faster as a result of fewer layers of bureaucracy. To combat this disadvantage, Philadelphia City Council must work together – and fast – to make benefits packages more attractive than the city’s neighbors and competitors.

Secondly, we are losing more key staffers than we can adequately replace. Part of this attrition is because we are experiencing a “silver tsunami” of experienced employees exiting the workforce at the same time that staff morale is taking a beating because of just how hard everyone has been working. The Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP) program is a way for public servants to retire with a bit of money to start their retirement. It’s a contract between the City of Philadelphia and valued public employees to officially stop the clock on their pension contributions and save four years of their pensions in a lump sum. It’s a win/win for the employee and the city for sure. That said, the DROP program is a key reason people are leaving the city.? The benefits of the program are designed to far outweigh the repercussions of a prospective retiree taking their DROP money.?

A key benefit of the DROP program is the advanced planning notice it provides the city.? By projecting the end date of an officer's career, the department can plan recruitment and training to be prepared. In addition to planning for physical human resources, there is a need to plan for the replacement of specialists, supervisors and commanders from all public safety departments. For this reason, it is critical to take advantage of the entire four years these skilled laborers remain in the department years after they are required to stay to collect a full pension.???

Third, as laid out earlier, diminished returns in recruiting continue to hamper staffing efforts. Recently, we had our largest class in more than five years – 93 officers – graduate from the Philadelphia Police Academy. This amazing and inspiring feat is primarily thanks to the hard work of Captain John Walker - MBA and his staff. However, we are still losing officers at the same time – an unsustainable trend for a city looking to become safer for its residents. There must be a better way.

The only way to get control of the chaos in Kensington, the shootings and violence, the ATV problem, the gun problem – any and all of it – is to aggressively hire and train the public safety personnel we need to provide the city and the residents of Philadelphia the quality of life they deserve. This initiative will require an emergency adjustment to all public safety budgets to provide a substantial pay raise at all divisions of public safety, and a substantial improvement to the pension program so public safety professionals can receive at least 75% of their annual pay in their pensions for 25 years of service, based on highest earnings – overtime included. You should be rewarded for giving your hours of life on overtime chasing people in Kensington and risking your life in the name of public service. There must be a bright light at the end of the tunnel for public safety practitioners. We need to let prospective candidates know we will take care of them if they commit to serving the City of Philadelphia.

We are at a tipping point. Gone is the luxury of having plainclothes teams proactively hunt for bad guys. Those operations have taken a back seat to respond-to-incident policing. We are proactive with directive changes and officer-of-the-month ceremonies and other directives that continue to be extremely important and are never to be minimized. Anything good for the officers is good for the city. Until we take recruitment seriously by paying officers and firefighters, medics, and other front-line employees what they deserve, nothing will change.?

Philadelphia had a commendable record of crime control during Commissioners Charles Ramsey and Richard Ross. We had commanders like Joe Sullivan, and we still have amazing commanders, too many to list. It must be very difficult for them to police the city without personnel at full capacity.? I can’t speak for the commanders – Nola Joyce taught me that lesson. Never speak for someone unless authorized, and I won’t. I can only hope we all see these much-needed changes come to fruition for the sake of the safety of all Philadelphians.

Lastly, I would like to discuss the Philadelphia Police Recruitment Team. I can only imagine how frustrating their mission is right now. They are taxed for resources and fighting to disrupt bureaucracy like everyone else. I had the pleasure of working a bit with their captain at the time, Tyrell McCoy, A true leader and man among men, he was an exemplar of the finest the City of Philadelphia has to offer, and so was his staff.? The recruitment team consists of a handful of dedicated officers on a mission to find viable candidates looking for a rewarding yet challenging career.??

The Philadelphia Police Recruitment Unit is employing new technology to help make the recruitment process faster and easier for all. They recently implemented Eventbrite online process registration with analytics to better track the recruitment process, and make it easier for candidates to sign up and “know before they go” to process events.? #OneSharedMission

It is clear that the current leadership wants the best for the City of Philadelphia. I know many of the commanders – and they are aces. I hope they get the help they need to do their jobs. I hope they will push the City Council and the next mayor to make the necessary changes to make us competitive and solve our recruitment crisis. God bless our heroes #ODMP

The starting salary for a Philadelphia Police Recruit is $61,888. For more information on how to join the finest police department in this Nation check out the Join PhillyPD Recruitment Page today and answer the call.

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Justin J. Frank, MBA

Philadelphia Police Department

Philadelphia Sheriff's Office

Retired

25+ Years of service