Clovis police chief’s dire report on short staffing leaves City Council ‘shocked’
Clovis Police Chief Curt Fleming sounded the alarm this week, saying the department is in a dire situation that officials openly worry puts the city into something of an identity crisis.
Fleming says the department’s staffing is so short that many special units have been stripped of officers to keep the patrol units staffed. He said the city is facing difficult decisions about whether to stop responding to certain calls for help if the staffing does not improve.
The chief and several members of the City Council said their decision could have an affect on the “Clovis way of life,” a saying that’s common among residents often proud of the local schools and community.
“This is a shocking story in the city of Clovis,” Councilmember Lynne Ashbeck said after hearing the chief’s report Monday. “This is not the Clovis story.”
The department is funded for 106 cops, but the city of about 123,000 needs at least 138, according to an analysis from Etico Solutions Inc., a consultation company that specializes in law enforcement agencies.
The department has four fewer officers than it did in 2006, Fleming said. The city has added about 40,000 residents in those 15 years.
What’s behind the staffing issues?
Clovis saw cuts to its police department during the Great Recession that affected most cities financially. But the Clovis Police Department in recent years has been hurt by increasing costs, Fleming said.
“Proportionately, as the city’s budget grows ours grows too. It’s not that we’re being shorted,” he said. “Costs have increased disproportionately.”
The costs for retirement and health benefits, for example, have grown since 2006, according to police. In 2006, about 57% of the department’s budget went to salaries, but this year the salary spending is closer to 40%, Fleming said, meaning there’s less money to pay for more officers because of retirements and other expenses.
Clovis has about 0.82 officers per 1,000 residents, according to the chief. In comparison, Fresno has about 1.45. That also puts Clovis dead last in cop-to-resident ratio in all of the central San Joaquin Valley, Fleming said.
At the same time, calls related to homelessness have increased and calls for services at Clovis hotels have gone up 200% in the past year, police say. Human trafficking is a daily issue at the hotels.
Fleming’s descriptions of the increase in calls did not match with the report from the consulting firm. The report showed calls for service have trended downward from more than 87,000 in 2016 to 10,000 fewer last year.
Fleming said it’s unclear why the calls for service have decreased, noting that 2020 was an unusual year amid the pandemic. He said he feared people may call less if they are dissatisfied with the response from officers.
Ultimately, the city would need to hire 50 officers in the next five years to fill positions and put it on pace with the city’s expected growth, according to the analysis. That’s an annual cost of about $9.2 million for a department funded at $40 million this year.
If the city decided to forego hiring more officers, Fleming said, leaders would need to reduce the workload for the patrol units.
Responding to alarms and animal complaints are the top two most common calls, according to Clovis police. Police could also stop responding to non-injury accidents, minor calls from retail stores or other less serious crimes.
The department tested that sort of thing during the Great Recession. “We stopped going to those non-injury accidents in 2008 and the public was not happy,” Fleming said. “We started going back to them, but that’s something we’re considering (again) because it’s a huge call volume.”
Some responses to calls — like business alarms — could be outsourced, the chief said.
Hearing the state of the department on Monday, several members of the City Council pledged they’d find a way to improve the department’s position.
People move to Clovis because they believe it is safe, has good schools and has responsive police, according to Councilmember Vong Mouanoutoua.
“If we lose that or even lower it, then we have lost what Clovis is,” he said.
This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
