Great Resignation? A Look at Contra Costa County Police Agency Staffing Levels

Last week, City of Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe attributed low police staffing levels at the Antioch Police Department to the “great resignation” seen across the country and called the current staffing levels of the police department “deceiving”.

Currently, the Antioch Police Department is allocated 115 officers and have 102 officers, however, due to administrative leave and injuries, the department only has 78-full time sworn duty officers available. This led to Thorpe announcing he will push a proposal to the city council to increase police hiring bonuses as well as a down-payment assistance program for officers coming to the City of Antioch.

“These numbers can be deceiving as currently the Antioch Police Department currently has 78 full-duty sworn officers because 24 are unavailable as a result of some form of related injury of some administrative leave,” said explained Thorpe. “78 full duty sworn officers are no different than when I move here 10-years ago when my family and I came from Maryland during the great recession.”

Several Antioch Police officers, who wished to remain anonymous, stated their reasoning for leaving had 100% to do with the majority city council and nothing else. They also cited not knowing who the police chief was going to be for the long-term.

According to data, between November of 2012 – October 2014, Antioch Police Department had staffing levels anywhere from 81-91 officers on the books. As of last week, Antioch Police were staffed at 102 officers thanks to efforts of Measure C and Measure W which were voter approved measures. However, the “available officers” were never provided during reports by the police department.

Back in December of 2019, then police chief Tammany Brooks said the department was at 112 officers in 2019 processed nearly 1100 applications. By May of 2020, the Antioch Police Department was fully staffed at 115 officers. That was the first time Antioch Police were fully staffed since 2004.

Several police chiefs in Contra Costa County, without providing specifics, gave reasons as to why hiring police officers has been difficult. They also explained no department will ever be truly fully staffed due to injuries, retention and retirements, but said vacancies are up for a variety of reasons which include:

• Negative perception of police departments over past two years
• Negative news stories
• Getting hired and money being defunded
• a change in state laws
• Retirement formulas when it comes to lateral hires
• City leadership
• Promotional opportunities

Here is a look at staffing levels around Contra Costa County as of Friday, April 8, 2022:

• Brentwood – their count is misleading as they recently upped staffing levels for the 5^th beat.
• San Ramon – 5 lateral hires in background
• Oakley Police had 2 recent retirements
• The police departments from the City of Concord and City of Martinez were not responsive to requests.

% Filled

• 97.8% – Pleasant Hill PD
• 96.5% – Pittsburg PD
• 94.9% – San Pablo PD
• 93.1% – Brentwood PD
• 92.8 – San Ramon PD
• 90.0 – Walnut Creek PD
• 88.7% – Antioch PD
• 85.6% – CoCo Sheriff
• 84.0% – Richmond PD
• 81.6% – Oakley PD

Officer per Capita using 2020 population data

• San Pablo (32,127) – 1.83
• Pleasant Hill (34,689) – 1.29
• Richmond (116,448) – 1.23
• Walnut Creek (70,127) – 1.14
• Pittsburg (76,416) – 1.12
• Brentwood (64,292) – 1.11
• Antioch (115,201) – 0.89
• San Ramon (84,605) – 0.88
• Oakley (43,357) – 0.87

Available Officers per Capita:
this is done by taking current officers available and simply removing admin leave & injury.

• Pleasant Hill (43 officers) – 1.24
• Pittsburg (74 officers) – 0.97
• Walnut Creek (65 officers) – 0.94
• Richmond (102 officers) 0.88
• Brentwood (55 officers) – 0.85
• San Ramon (63 officers) – 0.74
• Antioch (78 officers) – 0.67
• Oakley (28 officers ) – 0.64
• San Pablo – does not apply, did not provide data

According to 2019 FBI Data:

• A total of 13,247 city and county law enforcement agencies provided data on the number of full-time law enforcement employees (sworn officers and civilian personnel) on staff in 2019. (See Table 70.)

• Nationwide, the rate of sworn officers was 2.4 per 1,000 inhabitants. The rate of full-time law enforcement employees (civilian and sworn) per 1,000 inhabitants was 3.5. (Based on Table 74.)

• In 2019, the highest rate of officers to individuals among the city population groups was an average of 4.2 officers per 1,000 inhabitants in cities with fewer than 10,000 residents. (See Table 71.)
• County agencies reported an average of 2.8 officers per 1,000 inhabitants. (See Table 71.)
• Sworn officers accounted for 69.5 percent of all law enforcement personnel in the United States in 2019. (Based on Table 74.)