County police cut patrol staffing plan

Changes made so essential functions will not get lost

A controversial plan by Anne Arundel County Police to address patrol shortages has been adjusted and scaled back to ensure the department does not lose any of its essential functions, Deputy Chief Katie Roberts told The Capital Thursday.

In February, sources close to county police said Chief Amal Awad had announced the department’s intention to permanently reassign 62 officers to patrol shifts; many of those officers were in highly trained, sensitive or specialized positions.

Since that announcement, however, and following public criticism by the local police union, the county government paused the transfers pending “stakeholder engagement” with affected units and government agencies.

Department leadership similarly recognized a need “to make an adjustment” and formed a work group to take a “deeper dive into the data” to determine which officers could reasonably be moved, Roberts said. Positions with a lower risk of affecting critical operations became more likely candidates for transfer than those at higher risk.

For instance, all Police and Community Together, or PACT, officers, a team of 13 that works on establishing ties with communities across the county, will be moved to patrol — though the department will continue forming those bonds with other personnel.

“We expect all of our officers to be community officers,” Roberts said.

The new plan comes with a major reduction in transfers, as well. The deputy chief told The Capital that instead of 62 positions, the police department will instead be transferring 26 officers, half of which come from the PACT unit.

“We are very pleased with this plan,” Roberts said. “We think it’s much more palatable.”

Justin Mulcahey, the department’s director of external affairs, said the transfers will take place sometime in May.

To address years-long shortages in patrol staffing, the department’s initial strategy included a wide variety of position transfers, including investigative positions, members of the county’s gang unit and narcotics detectives, as well as specialized roles, like traffic reconstruction and financial fraud detectives.

Roberts confirmed Thursday that no school resource officers, gang unit detectives or members of the department’s crisis intervention team will be affected by transfers. Instead, members of the department’s technology and crime prevention unit, as well as certain task force officers who partner with federal agencies, will move back to patrol.

“The resources that are helping people with their well-being, helping them in schools or investigating serious crimes are not going to be affected,” she said.

Even with its new plan, which fulfills the roster’s “true vacancies” — shifts on schedule that do not have anyone assigned to them — county police will still struggle to fill positions for reasons other than hiring, Roberts said. The department averages 30 officers every month who are not operationally available, generally for health reasons, for more than 30 days.

To counteract this, county police will also begin a rotational transfer for personnel across the department. Officers from most units will be selected to replace out-of-service patrol officers, Roberts said.

The deputy chief acknowledged this change would come at a cost to several units, who will have to “do more with less.”

“With this strategy, we’re not going to be losing any kinds of services,” she said. “Yeah, the workload increases, but our department is not losing any services.”

O’Brien Atkinson, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 70, the county police union, and other lodge members attended all eight of County Executive Steuart Pittman’s budget town halls to criticize the department’s lack of staffing. Pittman has acknowledged his failure to bring the police department up to recommended staffing levels.

According to a 2019 FBI analysis, the typical police department in the United States has 2.3 officers for every 1,000 residents. For Anne Arundel to meet that benchmark, it would have to employ 1,364 officers. Staffing levels in Anne Arundel reached their highest point during the Pittman administration in 2019, with 806.

In a statement Friday to The Capital, Atkinson wrote that Anne Arundel County “has always underinvested” in the police department “due to our tax averse population.” Atkinson said the “do more with less” mentality has always been the mantra of the county government.

“Personnel in our agency are already overworked and understaffed,” Atkinson said. “Any cuts to operations is an equivalent cut to services and unless something drastic changes, we know that more cuts are coming.”

During this period, job postings will remain open for prospective police candidates.

As police recruitment has waned across the state, the Anne Arundel County Police Department has experienced a continual deficit in its roster, losing an average of 50 officers every year to either retirement or other departments, while only hiring 30 as replacements.

Roberts said Anne Arundel Police have been in regular contact with surrounding agencies to discuss staffing strategy.

“We’re not the only ones in this boat,” she said.