"...it’s confusing that MPD is deploying its experienced officers to the less violent and lower crime areas of DC."
Is part of this retention? I can see why from a policing perspective, you'd want experienced officers in higher crime parts of DC. But from a labor/retention perspective, if senior officers can credibly say they'll quit and transfer to a nearby low-crime jurisdiction in MD or VA, it's understandable why MPD might concede and allow more senior officers to go where they want within DC.
[Not at all sure on this, but I am assuming nearby jurisdictions would find senior MPD officers as appealing candidates to hire, and they have open spots to hire. Maybe senior MPD officers would require a high salary so they're less appealing, or maybe for pension reasons they don't really want to leave MPD and start over with a new police force.]
It's a couple of things but the dynamic you mentioned is real. Police officers (especially junior ones) have a lot of market power because there is a national shortage. With the pension benefit, once someone has a lot of years invested in 1 police department they have a pretty strong incentive to stay there instead of starting all over somewhere else. You see that the resignations are overwhelmingly among junior officers because of this. So doing a few years in 7D/6D and then taking a job elsewhere that will be easier is pretty attractive to many officers.
The point isn't so much to coerce people to rotate into 7D and 6D but for MPD to recognize that their attrition problem is specifically bad there and take measures to make it more attractive to stay there or rotate in. But that would require bargained changes in compensation and/or resource shifting so that working in those districts wasn't so much worse than say 2D. I think that is worth making some changes (because that is where the worst violent crime is and that's my priority) but MPD so far has not done that.
That makes sense. I can't imagine if I was doing the same job with same pay as someone else with such a drastically different workload and stress.
You may have covered this elsewhere but I was interested in two related things:
1) MPD staffing is at 50 year low. It seems the DC Council has not done enough to fund MPD to prevent this. Yet from where I am in DC, it seems there's consensus among residents that they want more officers to deal with rising crime rates. I don't see much of the defund movement around anymore, and think even at its apex, it was always smaller than it seemed to be online. Do you think the DC Council will be taking action to increase MPD staffing levels? Is there a sizable bloc of the Council that doesn't want to see more officers? (I am assuming here that the Mayor already wants and lobbies for more officers.)
2) I see the DC Council wrestling with last minute budget changes right now, and while I hear a lot about schools and how to pay for things, I don't hear anything about MPD. Is MPD funding in a different budget cycle or something?
Any insight is appreciated. I am learning a lot from your substack - thank you!
To briefly summarize, the Mayor asked for and the Council approved big hiring bonuses for MPD and it's not yielding more officers than attrition. Every city in the country is in a bidding war for traditional police applicants (and lateral transfers). MPD recruiting literally can't spend the money it has been allocated for hiring bonuses because of a lack of interest/limited pipeline/a lot of people fall out of the hiring pipeline. Page 131 of the PERF assessment get into their pipeline problems: https://mpdc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/mpdc/publication/attachments/PERF%20MPD%20Cultural%20Assessment_032923.pdf
There are things to be done to make DC more appealing for police and to broaden the applicant pool/Cadet program but all of those things are tough.
With the 2nd question budget MPD is IN in the same Fiscal Year cycle as the rest of the government. However, Chief Contee and Mayor Bowser basically said that with MPD attrition outpacing recruitment they will have to CUT (not increase) the budget for MPD and the Council approved that. Detail on why the Mayor proposed that in this post: https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/public-safety-in-the-mayors-proposed
To be fair to the Mayor, looking at realistic attrition trends and not holding onto money to pay for people that MPD wouldn't be able to hire is fiscally responsible. But "cutting MPD" does go against the Mayor's stated aims so it was a pretty awkward situation in the MPD budget this year.
In addition to recruitment, they also need to reduce attrition/improve retention and that's where all of the morale, workplace etc. issues raised in the PERF report are so important.
In short, getting MPD staffing levels up goes beyond just funding levels.
Thanks, that's really helpful. There's a lot in that report to digest. It's gotta be tough to lose Contee and spending energy searching for a replacement who hopefully will do a good job.
In the report, this stuck out to me:
"Personnel expressed significant frustration with the appearance and operating conditions of many MPD facilities and equipment, including neglected buildings with structural damage, mold infestation, and water leaks; run-down vehicles routinely out of service for maintenance; and inoperable computers."
It might be tough to use funding to increase officer numbers as you mentioned, but I'd think the DC Council and Mayor could at least throw money at improving MPD facilities, which could help a bit with morale and maybe even recruitment.
Yeah, I'd say that improving facilities and providing a child care backstop are ways that $ could translate into better recruitment and retention (more so than the not-so-effective $20-25K hiring bonuses). Your question prompted me to check and in the Mayor's proposed FY 2024 budget MPD's capital budget was cut by 0.8%:
I don't know where that number landed in the Council's final approved budget but it probably didn't change much (the big Council-vs-Mayor fights were mostly over other topics). With inflation a 0.8% nominal cut is more like a few percentage points in real terms. On the other hand, it was a tough budget all around.
If you are interested in what kind of capital projects MPD spends that budget on their report is here:
"...it’s confusing that MPD is deploying its experienced officers to the less violent and lower crime areas of DC."
Is part of this retention? I can see why from a policing perspective, you'd want experienced officers in higher crime parts of DC. But from a labor/retention perspective, if senior officers can credibly say they'll quit and transfer to a nearby low-crime jurisdiction in MD or VA, it's understandable why MPD might concede and allow more senior officers to go where they want within DC.
[Not at all sure on this, but I am assuming nearby jurisdictions would find senior MPD officers as appealing candidates to hire, and they have open spots to hire. Maybe senior MPD officers would require a high salary so they're less appealing, or maybe for pension reasons they don't really want to leave MPD and start over with a new police force.]
It's a couple of things but the dynamic you mentioned is real. Police officers (especially junior ones) have a lot of market power because there is a national shortage. With the pension benefit, once someone has a lot of years invested in 1 police department they have a pretty strong incentive to stay there instead of starting all over somewhere else. You see that the resignations are overwhelmingly among junior officers because of this. So doing a few years in 7D/6D and then taking a job elsewhere that will be easier is pretty attractive to many officers.
The point isn't so much to coerce people to rotate into 7D and 6D but for MPD to recognize that their attrition problem is specifically bad there and take measures to make it more attractive to stay there or rotate in. But that would require bargained changes in compensation and/or resource shifting so that working in those districts wasn't so much worse than say 2D. I think that is worth making some changes (because that is where the worst violent crime is and that's my priority) but MPD so far has not done that.
That makes sense. I can't imagine if I was doing the same job with same pay as someone else with such a drastically different workload and stress.
You may have covered this elsewhere but I was interested in two related things:
1) MPD staffing is at 50 year low. It seems the DC Council has not done enough to fund MPD to prevent this. Yet from where I am in DC, it seems there's consensus among residents that they want more officers to deal with rising crime rates. I don't see much of the defund movement around anymore, and think even at its apex, it was always smaller than it seemed to be online. Do you think the DC Council will be taking action to increase MPD staffing levels? Is there a sizable bloc of the Council that doesn't want to see more officers? (I am assuming here that the Mayor already wants and lobbies for more officers.)
2) I see the DC Council wrestling with last minute budget changes right now, and while I hear a lot about schools and how to pay for things, I don't hear anything about MPD. Is MPD funding in a different budget cycle or something?
Any insight is appreciated. I am learning a lot from your substack - thank you!
For #1 I recommend this post from March that talks about MPD's recruitment difficulties: https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/mpd-got-an-extra-5m-to-hire-more
To briefly summarize, the Mayor asked for and the Council approved big hiring bonuses for MPD and it's not yielding more officers than attrition. Every city in the country is in a bidding war for traditional police applicants (and lateral transfers). MPD recruiting literally can't spend the money it has been allocated for hiring bonuses because of a lack of interest/limited pipeline/a lot of people fall out of the hiring pipeline. Page 131 of the PERF assessment get into their pipeline problems: https://mpdc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/mpdc/publication/attachments/PERF%20MPD%20Cultural%20Assessment_032923.pdf
There are things to be done to make DC more appealing for police and to broaden the applicant pool/Cadet program but all of those things are tough.
With the 2nd question budget MPD is IN in the same Fiscal Year cycle as the rest of the government. However, Chief Contee and Mayor Bowser basically said that with MPD attrition outpacing recruitment they will have to CUT (not increase) the budget for MPD and the Council approved that. Detail on why the Mayor proposed that in this post: https://dccrimefacts.substack.com/p/public-safety-in-the-mayors-proposed
To be fair to the Mayor, looking at realistic attrition trends and not holding onto money to pay for people that MPD wouldn't be able to hire is fiscally responsible. But "cutting MPD" does go against the Mayor's stated aims so it was a pretty awkward situation in the MPD budget this year.
In addition to recruitment, they also need to reduce attrition/improve retention and that's where all of the morale, workplace etc. issues raised in the PERF report are so important.
In short, getting MPD staffing levels up goes beyond just funding levels.
Thanks, that's really helpful. There's a lot in that report to digest. It's gotta be tough to lose Contee and spending energy searching for a replacement who hopefully will do a good job.
In the report, this stuck out to me:
"Personnel expressed significant frustration with the appearance and operating conditions of many MPD facilities and equipment, including neglected buildings with structural damage, mold infestation, and water leaks; run-down vehicles routinely out of service for maintenance; and inoperable computers."
It might be tough to use funding to increase officer numbers as you mentioned, but I'd think the DC Council and Mayor could at least throw money at improving MPD facilities, which could help a bit with morale and maybe even recruitment.
Yeah, I'd say that improving facilities and providing a child care backstop are ways that $ could translate into better recruitment and retention (more so than the not-so-effective $20-25K hiring bonuses). Your question prompted me to check and in the Mayor's proposed FY 2024 budget MPD's capital budget was cut by 0.8%:
https://cfo.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ocfo/publication/attachments/fa_mpd_chapter_2024m.pdf
I don't know where that number landed in the Council's final approved budget but it probably didn't change much (the big Council-vs-Mayor fights were mostly over other topics). With inflation a 0.8% nominal cut is more like a few percentage points in real terms. On the other hand, it was a tough budget all around.
If you are interested in what kind of capital projects MPD spends that budget on their report is here:
https://cfo.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ocfo/publication/attachments/fa_mpd_capital_2024m1.pdf