FARGO (KFGO) — Fargo Police Chief Travis Stefonowicz is asking city leaders to budget eight new officers. He made his request during a budget workshop meeting Tuesday at city hall. He told commissioners there are technically six vacancies on paper, but underlying issues are causing headaches.
Stefonowicz says the time it takes to train and onboard new officers makes staffing numbers look better than reality.
“The difficult part is that it takes just about a year, maybe just a little bit longer than a year [to onboard]; by the time we actually select somebody, hire them, train them before they get out on the street,” Stefonowicz said.
Stefonowicz says 20 of his 201 officers are in training. 22 others are on various types of leave, including military and family leave. He says actual staffing numbers force the department to adjust workloads.
“We’ve asked our supervisory staff to take on more responsibility, do more with less while we work through trying to figure out staffing models that we can put more boots on the ground.”
Currently, the city has 201 officers, which is about 1.4 cops per thousand Fargo residents. The department’s goal has been 1.6 officers per thousand residents. Stefonowicz told commissioners the city would need 240 officers to meet their goal. The national average is 2 cops per thousand residents.
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