By Police1 Staff
SAN FRANCISCO — Police and firefighters are getting a long-anticipated boost in staffing levels, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee said Wednesday.
Six academy classes totaling 300 law enforcement candidates will be added under a new two-year budget, and over the next six years, the department will continue to hire three classes of 50 officers, according to ABC 7.
Currently, the department is about 200 officers short of the city-mandated number of 1,971 officers. Over the next three years, about 300 additional officers will be lost because a program offering more work for retired officers is ending.
Technology such as using computer tablets to write incident reports will be a focus of the new classes.
“If we can get our officers more connected, they can stay out on patrol longer, the back and forth to desktop computers goes away. These are all things we’re working toward,” SFPD Chief Greg Suhr said.
The fire department is an at all-time low in staffing but has set a goal of hiring 252 new recruits.