Top cop bullish on study calling for hundreds of more officers — but unions, lack of money could stand in way

A staffing study released Wednesday calls on the Chicago Police Department to put hundreds of more officers on the street, although the long-awaited plan could be hampered by labor contracts and the city’s financial crisis.

Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and other officials said the proposed changes would allow for better supervision, greater opportunities for community policing and more consistent response times across neighborhoods.

But Snelling said the study isn't just a call for increased manpower — it’s guidance “to help us become the most efficient department that we can possibly be.”

“When people call us, they want us to respond in a timely and efficient manner, so we're making sure that we're doing that,” Snelling said in an interview this week. “But at the same time, we need to make sure that we're being proactive when we're dealing with community members. That is the priority.”

The study, commissioned by the City Council over two years ago and conducted by the Matrix Consulting Group, found major “work load inequality” that has resulted in inconsistent services and inadequate supervision. It identifies the need for at least 273 additional patrol officers and 132 sergeants, but also calls for moving about 600 officers out of jobs that could be filled by civilians.

Civilian positions cost less than those held by sworn officers, and moving cops out of those roles could help fill gaps in patrol. Shifting those 600 officers to the street could ultimately help the department reach the goals identified in the study for adding more officers and sergeants.

Under the current structure, the study found, sergeants are often responsible for too many officers.

“The supervisors are just having too many direct reports,” said Allyson Clark Henson, the department’s executive director of constitutional policing and reform. “That then impacts their ability to be mentors, to keep that accountability mechanism.”

The staffing plan aims to ensure that officers remain in the same geographic area, spend 40% of their time on community policing and are consistently reporting to the same supervisor.

It suggests deploying officers based on sectors — a subset of a district — instead of beats, and calls for redrawing the borders of many sectors.

Robert Boik, senior vice president of public safety at the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, one of the study’s sponsors, said implementing the plan is crucial for releasing the department from a federal consent decree mandating reforms.

”If they do this with fidelity and follow this path for the next couple, few years, then I'm confident they're going to be on the right path to achieving operational compliance,” Boik said in an interview.

However, the department’s collective bargaining agreements with police unions could limit its ability to make any sweeping changes, particularly when it comes to shifting sworn officers into civilian roles.

There’s also the city’s massive budget shortfall. As of last fall, the police department had already slowed hiring to 50 recruits per month and won’t move new classes through the police academy this summer.

But Snelling has vowed to resist eliminating vacancies, even as Mayor Brandon Johnson ordered department heads to make budget cuts.

A longstanding issue

The last four Chicago mayors have made a show of moving police officers from desk jobs to street duty to fight violent crime.

But Civic Federation President Joe Ferguson said those efforts have been more show than go, noting that CPD still has the “lowest percentage of civilian employees among all major cities by a long shot."

Ferguson recalled that, during his 12-year run as the city’s inspector general, he released several reports identifying paper-pushing cops as the “low-hanging fruit." But he said the issue wasn't taken on "wholesale" until now.

There have also been periodic calls for the police department to shift cops from low-crime districts to high-crime areas with limited resources. But Ferguson said that wasn't the purpose of the newly released study. “It’s not designed to solve for all of the problems,” he said, adding that it'll be up to Snelling to resolve "the deployment issues."

Southwest Side Ald. Marty Quinn (13th) represents a Chicago Lawn District that has been struggling to serve the second-largest geographic area in Chicago with the fewest officers per capita.

He was hoping the workforce allocation study would give him the political ammunition he needs to justify a new police station with $6 million in state funding already secured. Instead, he was disappointed by the study's recommendation to add just 65 officers to the Chicago Lawn District.

“I view this as a validation of the argument that I’ve made and what they’re proposing is inadequate. The [Chicago Lawn] District is far too big and it needs to be cut in half,” he said.

Read the full workforce allocation study and the department's community policing assessment.