Interim Police Chief Teresa Biffle gave a disturbing report on the vacancies in the Greensboro Police Department at the City Council strategy session on Thursday, Oct. 13.
The City Council didn’t seem fazed by high vacancy rate that, according to Biffle, is going higher, and the councilmembers offered no real solutions.
Biffle said that the GPD was authorized to have 691 sworn officers and currently had 108 vacancies, in addition to 14 vacancies in nonsworn positions.
Biffle said that it was only going to get worse, with 12 officers who graduated from the last academy class in field training and 15 currently enrolled in the academy. She said that the current class started with 18 and is expected to lose a couple more before graduation.
As former Police Chief Brian James explained to the City Council several times, the normal attrition rate for the GPD is about 60 officers a year, which means to remain even, each of the two academy classes held during the year needs to graduate 30 officers.
Biffle explained that the best the GPD could expect this year was an additional 27 officers. According to the math, unless the GPD picks up a good number of lateral entries, by the end of the year it will be down an additional 33 officers.
Biffle said that a patrol division had about 100 officers, so one way to look at the current vacancy rate was that the GPD was down an entire patrol division. She added that because of a federal grant program in the 1990s, there were more police officers becoming eligible for retirement in the coming years than usual.
Biffle said that to make up for the lack of patrol officers she was having to pull detectives and other special services from their regular jobs and put them out on patrol.
Biffle said that some specialized units might be collapsed entirely. She said, “We truly need sworn resources to respond to 911 calls.”
City Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter suggested that the GPD try to get some help from the graduates of the Police Citizens Academy, a yearly program to introduce residents of Greensboro to the workings of the Police Department.
City Councilmember Tammi Thurm noted that while other cities offer higher salaries for officers with college degrees, Greensboro only offered a one-time bonus. She said, “That’s a huge incentive for people not to come to Greensboro if they have a college degree and want to be in law enforcement.”
This news should surprise no voter. You voted in an entire Council that absolutely could care less for you, your family’s, even your neighbour’s safety or property. They DO care about raising your property taxes and then spending the gains on worthless meaningless projects. God help Greensboro these next four years.
Amen, brother.
Marikay-good lord, do you really think that people from the citizen’s academy can help? You and Tammi Thurm need to propose a salary and benefits that will compete with other agencies. Do not even bother to hire a new chief if you give he or she nothing to work with for recruiting. I am “unfazed” by the continued idiocy of this council. I am numb to it. For those of you who touted “public safety” during election season as usual it was lies. GPD is nearing an emergency situation. When they are pulling detectives to answer calls that means they are not investigating crimes (like murders) during those hours.
Let me spell this our clearly for those council that can read. No one wants to work at GPD except the bottom of the barrel. That is why they start an academy with a certain number and you can predict 25% won’t make it. If you go to any of the places that officers from around the state train (like GTCC) they laugh at those that still work for GPD. When the agency gets hit in the next 3-4 years with these retirements, you will then understand there are no younger people waiting in the wings to take this thankless, woefully underpaid job. It is in your hands council.
Poor choice of words “bottom of the barrel”. There are many good, well trained. well educated officers working at the GPD. It is a shame that as a result of this shortage all of these officers are in jeopardy every time they respond to a call for service simply because they might not have backup when needed. It’s getting more dangerous out on the streets and I don’t see it getting any better. I am thankful for the men and women we do have out there.
Oh they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. They can seat 40 but cannot even get 20 qualified applicants for their academy.
Ms. Biffle speaks the truth. Without much higher pay for all the officers, and complete autonomy; things will get worserer and worserer. When criminals know what they can get away with, they will fill in the ever-widening vacuum.
Can you say Portland?
If crime is not your priority than you won’t care.
Just another example of how inept and unresponsive our city council is. Protecting our citizens should be their number one mission.
Go look at the N Elm St near the Woolworth’s store and you will understand why this city council could give a rats butt about the police dept man power. I know I will not be botherd by crime , I am prepared, but there are 10’s of thousands of good citizens that need, want and should have protection . We had the chance to vote out everyone of these lame people including the mayor and the small minority that voted went with what we have now. I don’t care if you are a Republican or Democrat and crime doesn’t either. Now we will face this disaster , or at least most of you will .
Democrats in charge. Need we say more?
This city council is just following the Democrats mantra of little or no police. We are getting just like other Democratic run cities and the problems those cities have. Guess when one of the black council members family is harmed or worse, then maybe after the NAACP is called in, they will wake up and do something constructive.
I wish that were true, but all that would result would be a call for higher taxes to fund after-school hoops programs and fingerpainting classes. Progressives are congenitally incapable of learning from their mistakes.
Uh, yeah. Don’t forget a good portion of all the polys, not just those on the left.
Look at our Senate candidates Beasley & Budd. Sigh.
Here is an idea, look at all the agencies around the city. They are currently paying more and have personal take home cars. I challenge all of you, speak to an Officer and they will tell you what will attract new recruits. Higher pay and cars. Until then you will see Officer leave this city for higher paying agencies and agencies that offer full time take home cars.
What a bunch of losers!
I have now watched Chief Biffle’s presentation. Hightower, another good lord. The PD is an emergency situation within the next year. It does not matter how many women or minorities or how old they are when you call 911. You as usual are missing the f-ing point. No one wants to work here when they can go somewhere else and make more money. Money, Money, and take home cars.
And Marikay-do you really want people riding around with no training and no sense of what they are doing? Do you want another George Zimmerman situation? Because that was what he was doing-citizen patrol.
SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH MONEY AND CARS. IT IS SIMPLE. BUT YOU ALL WILL NOT DO IT. If you are worried about your constituents being pissed, do not worry. They do not read the news and you have 4 years for them to forget. Why all the f-ing discussion? Just raise the salaries. And not 2%, which is what you did with the “raise” in September because you eliminated the cost of living. Guess what-police can do math. If I see another agency with a higher salary, which immediately goes towards my retirement, and a car (which saves the officer gas and allows them to be ready to respond from their house if necessary) that is where they are going to go.
Tammi-the city eliminated educational incentives. Officers used to get 10% for their 4 year on top of their starting salary. Do you want educated persons being police? And instead of worrying about the “peer” agencies why do you not lead the state with better salary and benefits? I like how Jamiah Waterman, a flunky city attorney, who is now head of city HR thinks its an equity issue for degrees. Any one can go get a degree now. For two years GTCC has been letting people go for free. Actually they have been paying students to go to school. The lack of someone wanting to take the effort to go to school is not my problem.
Police are not like other city employees. I do not think Parks and Rec or Water Resources are getting shot at, have the authority to take a life, enforce laws, take people to jail, work 24/7 365 days a year. When they are spending their Christmas breaking up other people’s domestics then they can get the same incentives. You as council have to start treating police as different than other city employees. The training and standards are higher and required by the state. Wake the F up.
I watched this unflavored jug of yogurt that is our police chief present this online. OMG, so many things wrong. Do the chiefs not go to a class on negotiations or bargaining? I know GPD does not have collective bargaining but put some damn effort into it.
Hey Chief Biffle, if you want to get something from council, do not downplay your problem. So you said that recruiting was down in 2021 by 56%, but then touted that it had rebounded by 11% for 2022. Those are some Joe Biden maths there. Negative 56% plus 11% is still roughly negative 45%. That is not a gain. It’s just less worse than it was, but it’s still horrible. It’s like when we say our murder rate is down from its all time high. Yeah that’s great, but if not for that all time high, this would still be the worst year ever for murder. Do not put positive spins on negative things if your goal is to get the message of crisis across, and GPD is in a state of emergency.
Secondly Chief Yogurt, you said that GPD only has a 16% workforce loss while other agencies experienced worse losses. You left out the key point that these other agencies, every single one of them, has already taken major concrete steps to address their problem, while GPD has not. I think every agency you just mentioned has instituted between a 15 and 20% pay increase this year to combat the very problem you are pointing out. GPD got a 5% raise, but it was instead of their usual 3% raise, so they really only got an extra 2%. That bonus 2% should inspire the troops. (Insert eye-roll)
Next, job fairs? That’s the best you’ve got, really? In this job market, only the unemployable are attending job fairs. Is that your best effort? Yeah, let’s attend more job fairs than we have people in the academy and see if we can pick up a couple more bottom barrel applicants. If you want quality people, you better not be looking at a dang job fair. Such a waste of time, as is your time as chief.
Meanwhile, you and the council continue to go through the same old motions and say, “See we’re not as bad as the others. It’s not so bad here. Let’s stay the course and keep doing more with less.” Well go ahead and stay the course and watch 108 vacancies become 120 by the end of this month and 150 by the end of this year. But you don’t care because you already have one foot out of the door. You’re going to actually be one of those 150 vacancies. Chief Yogurt, you are as much to blame as council for failing to stand up for your people in any meaningful way. No, by failing your people, you are more to blame.
I’ll post my comments on Council’s stupidity later. Wake up. DAMN.
Marykay, holy crap! Do you really think Citizens Academy rich and/or old people want to get into the mix with the police. The Citizens Academy is just designed to educate the average citizen about policing so they can let go of some of their biases. (Maybe Austin should attend.) It is not a training program. You council doofuses that think some old lady snooping around the neighborhood is going to help out are clearly out of touch. All you are going to do is create additional calls for the cops to have to respond to when they are already shorthanded. Most likely those calls will be to rescue or un-cluster whatever the untrained Citizen Academy wannabe got into. You should be looking at ways to create fewer calls for the police, not more.
Hightower is clearly still eaten up with racism since all she cares about are demographics, not butts in police cars. Hey dummy, we are out of police. GPD has been scraping the bottom of the barrel just to get 18 cadets into an academy and a quarter of them cannot even graduate. GPD’s standards are so low that they no longer care if you have done drugs or had gang affiliations.
Speaking of demographics, how are those murder numbers looking? Hightower, do you enjoy the fact that 40 to 60 of your constituents are killed every year? Do you think the victims of those crimes wish GPD had more black cops, or would they rather have simply had more cops, regardless of race? Maybe not missing over 100 cops off the street could have prevented a few of your constituents’ murders. But no, let’s keep twiddling our thumbs and expect top quality policing from a shorthanded, mediocre police department. Get your head out of your race based clouds and put some quality candidates, regardless of their race or gender, into police cars.
To council in general, if you want any candidates, let alone high quality ones, you people need to make some changes. All the other agencies around GSO have already taken steps to fix their problems. Winston cut out specialized units back in January. Other agencies have followed suit. Every other agency has instituted 15 to 20% raises this year, while you geniuses did 5%. They all have take home cars, we do not. They are tweaking schedule, some to mimic GPD’s 4 days on 4 days off schedule, so they won’t even be able to use that to recruit. Military, education, shift differential, other agencies are already doing everything that you guys are only “thinking about”.
You, the City Council, the ones who control the purse strings, have intentionally let GPD fall so far behind in pay and benefits that they can never catch up. You, the City Council of Greensboro, have defunded our police department. You have moth balled them, relegated them to the dregs of policing applicants as evidenced by 2 classes in a row of less than 20 people, over a quarter of which have or will fail out before graduating. Those are not the percentages of an attractive agency drawing in high quality applicants. The are the percentages of agency in its death throws, and it’s all because of you and “Soon to be Retired Chief Yogurt” who couldn’t sell ice water in the desert.
You guys suck. Every last one of you. Wake the hell up.
What happens when a company or government wants to get rid of a department but cannot eliminate it entirely? The department is neutered by defunding. Why would City Council desire to defund the police? Members are beholding to Black voters and to those who control their votes. There is an erroneous belief that police target Blacks. Statistics say otherwise. Greensboro City Council members want to play in the big boys’ sandbox, so their actions reflect what is happening in the sandbox they want to emulate. City Council members are not freethinkers. That is why the same people were re-elected. Freethinkers are harder to control.
You know who targets black males? Other black males. If you looked at homicide statistics every year in Greensboro and across the nation it is black males killing black males. Do you care about that Sharon, Yvonne, Goldie, Nancy Vaughan or anyone else who “represents” east Greensboro? I can guarantee you the police aren’t “targeting” them because there are not enough and most just answer calls because any proactive behavior puts their life, finances, and family at risk. Ask Hamilton about just answering a call. He got indicted for his efforts trying to get a domestic trespasser who just days earlier was hiding in a closet at the same house with a shotgun. Maybe Marikay can get a citizen’s academy member to answer that kind of call. Or maybe Cure Violence can show up. Gosh yall suck.
Hey Thurm, we paid officers higher salaries for college degrees. Your ilk did away with it. Your ilk has limited, eliminated or reconstructed every single hiring perk we had over other cities. This city council has been “defunding” police long before it became a thing.
Surprised ? Really ? Is this not the ultimate outcome of disparaging the police department at every turn for decades? There are criminals roaming the streets of many neighborhoods in the city and county each night checking car doors, and storage shed doors and stealing anything they can get to. Strolling from driveway to driveway, street by street without a care at all for being caught. Police and Sheriff are short-handed so it just goes unchecked. Ring camera footage of this is everywhere. The city is swimming in money, so much so that it is considering subsidizing employee home purchases. Would my tax money be better spent making sure all city residents have adequate police protection ?
Dearest Greensboro,
You get what you voted for. Best of luck!
You have hit the nail on the head! Only the voters can fix Greensboro’s many, many problems.
Here’s the dirty little secret that no one is telling you. City HR takes in the applications for police recruits then gives the applicants that they choose to the PD so the background process can begin. If the applicant is a white male and doesn’t check a box then the application is put into the circular file, (for the low IQ people that’s the trash can). I know this to be fact because many officers relatives have applied and been turned down multiple times. Now just because you have a relative that works for the PD doesn’t mean you are qualified. The cases I’m referring to are many cases where the relative of the officer applies sometimes as many as 5 times before they actually make it to the police academy. So they are ultimately hired but it takes multiple attempts. Now using common sense, which isn’t common anymore, you can logically determine that if a person is ultimately hired and deemed qualified on the 5th attempt the person was qualified all along. Why would you run an academy with 20 people when you have qualified applicants that have applied? Well the wokesters that are running the place have determined that in order to be as woke and PC as possible, the police academy would look so much better if they could say we have 80% minority in this police academy. I’m all tingly inside just typing that sentence. The council isn’t going to do anything folks until it gets so bad that Starmount, Brassfield and Country Club Drive are all affected but by then it will be too late. We are on the verge of it being too late already. Calls hold for hours as it stands now with 108 vacancies once it hits 150 good luck. Specialized units will be collapsed in order to answer calls, the officers that were on those units will be pissed and look elsewhere, because for some of them specialized units are why they have stayed at GPD. Specialized units are at the top of the list of benefits GPD has on their job fair hand outs by the way, which on the verge of becoming extinct.
Seems like you’re making the facts fit your conclusion instead of your conclusion fitting your facts. You have no idea why kids of officers get turned down because you are not in HR. Maybe they smoke dope, maybe they are criminals, maybe they are too dumb to pass the written test, maybe their social media is full of bad things. At some point the dope smoking time limit has passed or they have cleaned up their social media, or they have learned to take a test, and so they eventually get hired.
You simply do not know why they don’t get in and you are throwing some random theory out there as fact. Why would there be any white boys in the academy at all if what you are saying is true? GPD has enough problems with getting anyone to apply right now. I don’t think they are eliminating whitey just because he’s white.
Tammi Thurm hit the nail on the head. Some agencies give you an increased base salary for education, and other things like speaking a second language. GPD does a one time bonus. One of the reasons I didn’t even give them a second look. Why would a prospective officer take a one time payout for their abilities they use everyday, such as a college education, or speaking Spanish? This would be a big help right there and would get them those applicants who’d rather be rewarded regularly, for education and skills they regularly use.
Tammi Thurm and her cohorts are the ones that took away all of the previous hiring and retention incentives. GPD used to have a 10% educational bonus for bachelors degrees. City council eliminated it and made it a one time check for an insultingly low amount when compare to all the work one has to do to get a degree.
GPD used to have an annual longevity bonus that started after the employee was there for five years. Then every five years thereafter, as a way to say thank you to the employee for their commitment, the bonus went up a small amount. City council did away with that one too.
This “retention problem” that the city council has suddenly “discovered” was caused by city council. Who knew that doing away with hiring and retention incentives would adversely affect hiring and retention?
They are truly idiots.