Related: Atlanta PD on the lookout for recruits
By Eric Stirgus and Tim Eberly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ATLANTA — The Atlanta Police Department has been unable to reach its longtime goal of 2,000 officers on the force largely because it’s having trouble keeping recruits and younger officers, the city’s internal auditors say in a report to be released Tuesday.
About 9 percent of the 1,600-member force left last year, auditors said the 36-page report. In 2004, the departure rate was nearly 7 percent.
“It’s going to be hard to reach that 2,000 mark,” Councilwoman Cleta Winslow, chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee, said Monday. “We have as many people leaving as coming. It’s just so much competition [from other law enforcement agencies] around the country.”
Atlanta police Sgt. Lisa Keyes, a department spokeswoman, said Monday evening she did not know about the report and did not have a copy. But she said the department is looking into the issue.
“We’re in the process of evaluating why officers are leaving so that we can retain more officers,” Keyes said. “And at the same time, we want to make our department more attractive to potential candidates.”
Keyes said she couldn’t specify how the department is evaluating the departure of officers, but said exit interviews are a factor.
“They are read,” Keyes said. “They are evaluated to see why people are leaving.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained a copy of the report Monday. Auditor Leslie Ward declined to comment.
Auditors found the staffing problems have resulted in fewer officers on patrol. During one day in August, each of the city’s six zones had one beat uncovered during a shift.
The police department has 139 more officers than it did in 2003, when auditors began their research. But the department has had more trouble keeping officers in the past year.
At the end of 2006, the police force had 1,607 sworn officers. By the end of last year, the department had 1,606 sworn officers.
Former Mayor Bill Campbell pledged in the 1990s to have 2,000 officers on the force by 2000. A 2004 report for the city established a goal of 2,000 police officers.
Police officials include recruits in its total of officers, but auditors say it takes about nine months before recruits are on patrol.
The auditors wrote that police commanders should focus more on why officers are leaving. One-half of the police officers who left in 2006 took lateral or lower-paying jobs, according to exit interviews reviewed by the auditors. Police officials told auditors they have tried to retain officers by offering tuition reimbursement, bonuses and more training opportunities.
Ward wrote in a letter to city officials that she did the audit because of the police department’s importance to city government and its impact on the Atlanta general fund budget, which had a deficit of more than $60 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30. The police department’s current budget is nearly $180 million, more than any city agency in Atlanta’s general fund.
Mayor Shirley Franklin and council members have bickered over the budget situation and its impact on public safety services. Franklin said she would not fund 53 vacant police department positions after the council approved budget cuts instead of raising property taxes this year.
Copyright 2008 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution