Police chief again challenged by council on staffing shortfall

Springfield Police Chief Paul Williams returned to a Springfield City Council workshop yesterday to answer questions that arose from his report to the body on March 2 – particularly queries about his department’s staffing levels.

The department is authorized to employ 367 officers, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting, and there are now about 45 vacancies, according to Williams’ report.

At the March 2 workshop, Williams was challenged by some members of council on the issue of the department’s progress toward meeting council priorities. Councilmember Brandon Jenson told him that council’s public safety priority means what the department is doing is not sufficient, while Councilmember Derek Lee was critical of slow movement on overcoming a department staffing shortage.

“I just feel like we’ve been doing the same things for the brief time we’ve been on here – it’s almost three years now – but I for one am very disappointed that our numbers have not moved any more than they have with the total number of officers,” Lee said on March 2.

In yesterday’s return visit to a council workshop, Williams addressed some of the concerns and questions raised by council members with more data and explanation of the department’s ongoing staffing shortages.

Attrition in the department was impacted by a council decision to allow rehiring of officers after retirement.

Regular retirees numbered 19 in fiscal 2024, 22 in 2025 and 19 so far in 2026. Williams noted only five officers remained to take advantage of that opportunity.

The department has lost 32 staff members from all causes so far in fiscal 2026, he said, compared to 29 in fiscal 2024 and 38 in fiscal 2023.

By comparison, hires from the department’s academy classes – made before the academy is completed – ranged from 14 to a high this year of 24 over the last five academies, though graduation numbers ranged lower, from 12 to 17, in the same period, with the graduation numbers from the most recent academy yet to be determined.

Lee again drilled down on the numbers, saying that he heard similar comments from Williams three years ago.

“I know a bunch of people from council made suggestions, and the thoughts were all, oh, well we’re doing that, or we’re doing this,” he said. “It seems like we should have some results by now.”

Williams said in 2021 and 2022, the department had half the number of applicants and double the retirements.

“We’ve taken all the suggestions – we changed. We’ve reduced the timeline, we’ve changed some requirements, we increased pay, we revised some testing procedures,” he said. “We have made inroads. We went from 65 vacancies to 45 in the last two years.”

Williams said his goal is still to be back to 20 vacancies by the end of 2026.

“In ’27, I’m absolutely confident we’re going to be there,” he said.

He said council’s rehire/reinstatement program was a double-edged sword, accelerating retirements.

“There’s 30 people in there who would not have retired yet; they would have been retiring in the next three years,” he said.

Not everyone came back, he said, with 10%-20% just retiring early.

Williams said he would like to be back to 2019 figures, when the department was fully staffed. The years 2020 and 2021, periods of high-profile policing issues, hit law enforcement hard all around the country, he said.

Lee stressed the importance of police numbers in tackling crime.

“We can talk about all the numbers and all the specific things, but at the end of the day, if we don’t have enough officers, I don’t know how we’re going to move some of these – and it’s got to come from you,” he said.

Williams said the department has made strides. He added that if rehiring retirees had been permitted five years ago when he first asked for it, before its legality had been determined, the department would not be in the position it is.

He added that of more than 500 applicants in the last academy class, he hired only 24.

“Unless you want me to lower standards and say we’ll take people who don’t pass this, this or this, it is a tough environment to get someone in who wants to be here and who we want them to be here,” he said. “My goal is by bringing in 500-600 applicants, we’re going to get to the 25 or 30 – I wish we could hire 50.”

Although officer staffing levels continue to be below the target, crime is on the decline in the Queen City, according to statistics from the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System, with a 4.7% year-over-year drop in crime in 2025, as reported previously in Springfield Business Journal.

In 2025, the department had 18,317 reports for crimes against persons, property or society, compared to 19,226 in 2024. In 2021, there were 24,101 reports.

Crimes against persons rose from 5,877 in 2024 to 5,972 in 2025, a 1.6% increase, according to NIBRS data. Crimes against property had a year-over year drop in that period from 10,759 to 9,864, or 8.3%, while crimes against society dropped from 2,590 to 2,481, or 4.2%.

There were 10 murders in 2024 and one fewer, nine, in 2025, according to NIBRS.

Williams offered more insight into response times, which are faster in all categories in each year over a four-year period.

• Priority 1 calls, when a crime is in progress: goal, 6 minutes; 2025 average, 6 minutes, 27 seconds; 2022 average, 7 minutes, 8 seconds

• Priority 2 calls, when a crime has occurred by the suspect is gone: goal, 10 minutes; 2025 average, 9 minutes, 11 seconds; 2022, 10 minutes, 21 seconds

• Priority 3 calls, serious crimes that need to be reported: goal, 15 minutes; 2025 average, 14 minutes, 55 seconds; 2022 average, 18 minutes, 48 seconds

Williams also offered data on calls for service related to quality-of-life concerns in 2025, for general disturbance, loud parties, noise disturbance, nuisances, trespassing and traffic violations. There were 15,363 total calls in 2025, compared to 15,904 in 2024 and 17,234 in 2023, he reported.

Service calls overall numbered 90,771 for patrol officers in 2025, plus 12,905 handled by phone, Williams said.