The ranks of the Chicago Police Department are well below full strength, even as the rate of hiring has increased in recent years, according to testimony Thursday before the City Council.
The department now has 587 vacancies, with plans to hire only 200 more officers in coming months — before accounting for end-of-the year retirements, Superintendent Garry McCarthy said during council hearings on Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2015 budge proposal. The city is working to bring the department up to the full authorized strength of 12,533 officers, he said.
But late Thursday, a police spokesman said the wrong numbers were presented to the City Council. There are a total of 360 vacancies, 96 of which will be filled before the end of the year, said the spokesman, Martin Maloney.
“We’re keeping up with attrition,” McCarthy told aldermen. “As people retire, we’re hiring. There’s going to be ebbs and flows in that.”
The 96 vacancies that will be filled before year’s end are among rank-and-file officers, which would reach full strength at about 9,700, Maloney said. An additional 264 vacancies are among the ranks of detectives and police brass.
Many aldermen have been calling on the city for years to increase the number of authorized positions. Emanuel sped up the hiring process after taking office in mid-2011 and worked to shift cops from desks to beats, but he has not increased the overall number of officers.
As the city grappled with stubborn rates of violent crime in South and West Side neighborhoods, overtime payments outstripped budgeted amounts by tens of millions of dollars, reaching $103 million last year and an expected $95 million this year. McCarthy on Thursday told Ald. John Arena, 45th, he couldn’t guarantee the $72 million for overtime in next year’s budget proposal would be sufficient.
“You now alderman, I can’t answer that — I really can’t,” he said. “We’re trying to knock it down. We’re putting systems in place to do that, and slowly but surely I anticipate we’re going to bring it under control.”
About 44 percent of overtime is spent to send officers into high-crime areas to reduce violence, McCarthy said. The rest goes to pay officers who work beyond the end of their shifts or testify in court during their off-duty hours.
City budget officials say it’s less expensive to pay overtime than hire more officers for the violence-reduction efforts because of the high cost of benefits. McCarthy said Thursday that more boots are needed on the streets during the summer months, making overtime “more efficient, more facile and … easier to use.”
Ald. Scott Waguespack, 32nd, said he was not satisfied with McCarthy’s explanation.
“For the last couple years we’ve gone around the 100 million (dollar) mark,” Waguespack said. “And that’s where I think it’s an overtime budget that’s out of control. They’re either not anticipating or not doing the month-to-month budgeting like they should, and not getting help that they need to figure out how to rein in that overtime budget.”
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