Even if the Gwinnett County Police Department filled its 137 vacancies, it would still need 30 more officers to meet the demands of a growing population, Chief Butch Ayers said.
Ayers asked the county’s budget committee to authorize 30 new officer positions for 2020 in a Wednesday presentation. The committee is hearing budget proposals from county government departments through Thursday. Ayers’ request was part of a proposed $156.6 million 2020 budget.
READ | Gwinnett sheriff wants to add 79 more deputies in 2020
The Gwinnett County Police Department currently has 741 police officers, a ratio of 0.91 officers for every 1,000 people in the department’s “service population.” That encompasses the more than 818,000 residents all unincorporated parts of the county and all its cities excluding Duluth, Norcross, Lilburn, Snellville, Lawrenceville, Suwanee, Braselton and Auburn, which have their own city departments.
Those local departments have an average of 2.2 officers per 1,000 residents, according to Ayers’ presentation. The Atlanta Police Department — the only metro Atlanta department larger than Gwinnett — has 3.47 officers per 1,000 residents. DeKalb County has 1.31, Cobb County has 1.02 and the national average is 2.8, Ayers said. Gwinnett PD’s goal is a ratio of 1.3 officers for every 1,000 residents.
Having more officers is important because the number of calls to Gwinnett County police is rising along with the county population. The department projects there will be almost 845,000 calls this year, up from 832,061 in 2018. While overall crime rates are trending down, and were down 2.98% in 2018, more people and more calls require more officers, Ayers said.
The department has been proactive in its hiring efforts, attending 28 job fairs across the country and holding seven hiring events in Gwinnett and outside Georgia this year. The hiring events, advertising and other recruitment costs have already exceeded $337,000 for 2019; the department spent $362,316 on recruitment in 2018.
Low starting pay compared to other area departments presents a challenge in hiring, Ayers said. Gwinnett recruits start with an annual salary of $39,801, lower than every city department in the county except for the Auburn Police Department and fourth lowest in a group of 18 metro Atlanta agencies, according to Ayers’ presentation. Officers who complete training are also regularly hired away by other agencies, including Gwinnett County Public Schools and Buford City Schools police departments, Ayers said.
“They basically tell me the reason why is they want the Gwinnett standard … They want a capable, ethically trained officer and the’yre out cherry-picking our best people,” Ayers said. “They don’t take rookie officers. They take highly trained officers with experience.”
Ayers did not ask for a pay increase for officers. County employees, including police, received an across-the-board 3% pay raise in the 2019 budget.
If approved, the 30 new police officers could start in October 2020.
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