It is recommended that the City Council adopt the attached ordinance prescribing the number of authorized sworn positions in each classification in the Police Department, temporarily increasing the number of authorized sworn positions in the classification of Police Officer by twenty-nine, effective December 9, 2017, thereby increasing the total authorized civil service positions from 1,730 to 1,759, effective December 9, 2017 and effective until superseded by future ordinances.

The purpose of this Mayor and Council Communication (M&C) and the attached ordinance is to temporarily increase the number of authorized positions in the classification of Police Officer in the Fort Worth Police Department by a total of twenty-nine in order to have sufficient Police Officer positions for all of the graduates of the Fort Worth Police Department Recruit Class 144, who are expected to graduate on December 8, 2017 and promote to Police Officer on December 9, 2017.

There are currently forty-five recruits in Recruit Class 144 and sixteen Police Officer vacancies.  Projected Civil Service retirements and separations in the Police Officer rank are not expected to result in enough vacancies in this rank in order to promote all graduating recruits to Police Officer on December 9, 2017.  Additionally, although Civil Service promotional testing and associated promotion processes are currently underway, a new Corporal promotional list is not expected to be available until after December 21, 2017.  The Officer vacancies created by promotions to Corporal based on the new list will not be available until after Recruit Class 144 graduates; thus, creating the need for temporary overages.

On August 1 and 29, 2017, the City Council adopted Staffing Ordinances for the Police Department (Ordinance No's. 22813-08-2017 and 22856-08-2017) to temporarily increase the authorized positions at the Officer rank in order to accommodate graduating Fort Worth Police Recruit Classes.  These increases, or overages were necessary due to accelerated training associated with staffing up the sixth patrol, lower-than-projected attrition and delays in promotions at higher ranks that resulted in too few vacancies at the Officer rank to accommodate the graduates.  Class 144 was also associated with this effort.  As the promotional processes are completed and true vacant Police Officer positions are realized, revised staffing ordinances will be presented beginning in the spring of 2018 to restore the intended authorized strength noted in the table below.

On November 14, 2017, the City Council adopted the most recent Staffing Ordinance 22999-11-2017, effective November 14, 2017, which amended the Police Department Staffing levels, establishing the classification of Commander and creating six positions in the rank as allowed in the Meet and Confer Contract and approved by City Council on May 16, 2017.

Approval of the attached ordinance would result in new authorized civil service staffing levels to be effective December 9, 2017, as follows:

NOTE: The position changes at issue in the M&C and ordinance do not in any way affect the civil service positions that were added with the receipt of the COPS Hiring Program Grant (M&C C-27135).