The City Council has a work session scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 23, with three items on the agenda.
The first is a Greensboro Police Department (GPD) update, which will include a presentation by Police Chief Brian James on the “Greensboro Police Department Strategic Plan FY 2021-2024.”
One part of the plan that the City Council has discussed in the past year is staffing. The plan notes that the GPD is allocated 683 sworn officers and currently has 34 vacancies for a 5.2 percent vacancy rate, and it states, “Based upon hiring and attrition rates for sworn personnel, the Department is projecting that sworn staffing levels will decrease. Currently, there is high attrition and a decreasing number of job seekers within law enforcement. Among those who do apply, the qualifications of the applicant is often marginal. Public perception of law enforcement also contributes to the barrier to effective recruitment.”
This is an issue that Councilmember Justin Outling spoke about in the video he posted on Facebook last week, that the GPD doesn’t have enough officers to meet its own response time or coverage goals.
According to this plan, the GPD projects that problem to get worse not better.
The GPD also employees 114 non-sworn employees and actually has a higher percentage of vacancies, 8.6 percent among non-sworn employees.
The plan notes that the last significant increase in the number of sworn officers was in 2011, when 30 new positions were added, and that since that time the ratio of officers to residents has decreased.
The plan states, “With population trends showing a steady increase, a growing economy (housing, entertainment, and hotels), and a performing arts center for downtown Greensboro, workloads for officers are expected to increase in the near future.”
Also on the agenda for the work session is a presentation on the “South Elm Development/Redevelopment Commission.” This is the presentation on the proposed mixed-use development at Union Square on the corner of South Elm Street and Gate City Boulevard that Mayor Nancy Vaughan requested at the March 16 City Council meeting
Vaughan said the City Council would vote on the approval of that proposed redevelopment project at the Tuesday, April 6 meeting.
There is also a presentation on how the delayed 2020 census figures may affect the 2021 City Council elections.
The men & women on the line literally risk their lives every day. They should be properly paid, and have a good work environment. Support the GPD, and leave them alone so they can do their job. Back them up.
What idiot wants to be a policeman in this crazy crazy time and place? Defund the Police and reimagine the police, attitudes or mentality, has jaded the already soiled perception of law enforcement. When seconds count, the police are minutes away it’s been said.
Of course we need a fully staffed police department because with “…a performing arts center for downtown Greensboro, workloads for officers are expected to increase in the future. ”
I’m sure the season ticket buyers at Performance arts boondoggle are happy to hear they will get police protection when they wear their pearls and minks to the opera. Police staffing around Performance Arts Boondoggle is a major priority??? Wow our Mandate Mayor and outta touch council let our PD get to where we are now with gangs out of control, sky high murder rate, and now will struggle staffing to protect folks that drop 200 bucks to see Broadway travel shows in a empty and dangerous downtown.
Can you source your numbers? Tickets are closer to $30-$40, no different than attending a good ‘ole boy ACC game or rednex concert at the Coliseum. Your perception seems a little bit off.
When is the last time you have been to a concert? Minimum of $100 plus the ticketmaster fees and parking.
That’s why I don’t go. It’s not that I can’t cough up $200 + fees + park, it’s that I am not willing to. The last time we paid big for a concert was Paul McCartney, for 3.5 hours, he was worth it.
And about those obscene fees, the Coliseum sells thru ticketmaster FIRST; you cannot drive over and buy your tickets in person (without the fees). The Coliseum allows this price-gouging. So when you are finally allowed to buy in person, all the good seats are taken. Such was our experience for James Taylor.
So our tax-supported Coliseum is sticking it to the taxpayer however they can.
Name-calling is not a good argument.
Smells fishy. A 5% vacancy rate, yet they are paying about a dozen officers a day overtime to come in and work extra shifts for the foreseeable future? Interesting, very interesting. I bet if you called around and asked the heads of the patrol districts how many vacancies they had, the numbers would be far greater than 34.
Even if that number is true, assuming they are counting their police cadets in their sworn numbers, GPD has hired all of the officers it can get into the field already this year. One academy, hired last year, just graduated. A second just started. Combined they are about 30 people. But between now and when they hire the next academy to start this fall, GPD will lose at least that many people, if not more to attrition and retirement. (Oh and on the subjects of cadets, they count them as sworn people when counting them present, but if they get fired, they count it as a non-sworn separation if they have not yet graduated. Way to fudge those numbers. NICE!)
The unfortunate truth is that the anti-police culture Greensboro and the nation at large have created, combined with lackluster pay and benefits the city council continues to allow GPD to operate under, have created a work environment that no one wants to come to. “Hey come work at GPD where we expect you to be perfect, but for less pay than other agencies, intense city council micro-oversight, no take home car, and if you get hurt on the job and can’t get healthy, we’ll cut you loose.” All the risk, none of the support… I mean, where do I sign up?
Consider this: The city council is raising the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. According to their website, GPD starts at about $39K per year. $39,000 a year equates to about $18 an hour. Do you really expect to get awesome police officers to come here for what amounts to little more than what the city considers the minimum wage? Hmmm, I could be a landscaper in the park, a garbageman, or a fireman for $15 or I could get shot at, spit on, ridiculed, and Monday morning quarterbacked for every decision I make for $18. Who would do that? Well, based on GPD’s reported recruiting troubles, it seems that the answer is “Virtually no one”.
The going rate for entry level law enforcement officers in the larger cities in NC is in the mid to upper $40s. Many of them also recruit experienced officers all over NC and the southeast US, yet another reason why our so-called council needs to step up and do the right thing. Quit relying on new officers who have to go to rookie school, then have to be under the tutelage of an experiences officer for 6-8 months, and get out and recruit experienced officers and pay them 45-50,000 to move to GBO. Pay their moving expenses too!
The question The media should be asking is why all the vacancies are in patrol. Every other area maintains no or minimal vacancies. Maybe patrol should always be full and the 8-5 desk jockeys can have fewer staffing since they are not answering calls. When you talk about response time do the math. 90% of the vacancies are in patrol. Lord knows they could not let CID , CRT, or any of the other BS specialized units hold a spot or two.
And while we are in the subject I agree with the above poster. Who the F wants to work there? Our City Council loves to name officers from the dais when they don’t know all of the facts or use their positions to influence administrative investigations. Like when your buddy’s son gets stopped on the greenway. Or when you want to settle a lawsuit in which the officers are not at fault. GPD will continue to be short. They will scrape the bottom of the barrel while potential hires go to W/S or High Point.
A quick internet web searcharoony debunks your $39K claim.
Also, why would anyone go into any field for anything other than money? Your entire argument is based on $$$ and, hard to imagine, some people go into fields because they are passionate about the work. So while maybe some folks acknowledge they could be a garbage man at only a slight discount to police officer, other folks are passionate about law enforcement. Also, to put it in perspective, even your fake police salary numbers are still more than a starting teacher salary. Why would someone want to be a teacher and get paid dirt when they can be a trash collector and I’ve life sooooo easy? Oh right, they may actually WANT to be in education despite the challenges.
Note: trash collectors and other sanitation workers have a damn hard job and in no way do I believed that job is easier or less valuable than being a police officer or educator.
I presume you understand the law of supply and demand? Read the works of Milton Friedman.
Many young people have looked to other careers in large part due to the pressures of being in law enforcement, and the constant abuse they get from so-called leaders in their community. It takes a special kind of person to wear a gun, live with the potential of being killed or permanently injured, and also having the “leaders” in their local governments constantly trying to make them social workers.
Last time I checked no one was burning cities down over teachers and their perceived injustice. And where are you getting your numbers? Google Greensboro PD salaries and a PDF shows that new officers are starting at $38,987. City Council will give a pittance to starting pay and create compression where the new guys make more than some of the experienced officers. What people do not realize on the outside that inside the law enforcement profession in NC Greensboro ranks at the bottom of places to work. This is a result of pay, no take home car, the attitude of city leadership, the failure to recognize issues that are not law enforcement’s job to solve, ect. There are cities like Graham in which you make more from the beginning and do not have to deal with the BS. The reputation of Greensboro is junk.
Name Star, whay ate you talking about? GPDs own website says they start at $39k. What site are you using? Please site your source that supersedes GPDs?
Yeah, bit no one wants to protest or kill the garbage man.
https://www.greensboro-nc.gov/departments/police/join-gpd
GPDs website: $38,987 to start.
What else you got Name Star?
I disagree. I don’t recall a trash collector being despised, shot, insulted, assaulted.
Agree Miller. Even when teachers rape students, when doctors kill patients through malpractice, or lawyers get disbarred for failing in their duties, there is no nationwide outcry. No cities burn because of any of these things, even though a raped student’s life is no less destroyed than someone mistreated by the police, nor is a malpractice victim less dead than one unjustly shot by an officer. Where is the outrage?