CINCINNATI — Both chiefs of the Cincinnati Fire and Police Departments shared their goals, accomplishments and needs with members of Cincinnati's Budget and Finance Committee on Wednesday.
The two chiefs are working on how much money they'll need to keep their departments up and running while trying to improve in the next fiscal year.
The city's budget will be completed in April and March, before it has to be passed by June 30.
Both CPD Chief Teresa Theetge and CFD Chief Frank McKinley shared that staffing issues are one challenge that plague their respective departments.
Hear Theetge and McKinley's remarks to city council in the video below:
“The pool of people interested in joining law enforcement is smaller, you’ve got all the agencies across the country fighting for those resources," Theetge said.
Theetge told WCPO 9 that her department is currently about 130 officers short of full staffing, which would be 1,059 officers in total.
“We haven’t been at 1,059 in years," she said.
To combat short staffing, CPD has been working hard to recruit.
"We are thinking so far outside the box on our recruiting efforts, more than we had to do in many, many years," Theetge told members of city council.
With the Cincinnati Fire Department, McKinley explained that CFD is close to being fully staffed.
“We have 841 FTE’s, uniformed FTE’s. But since 2019, we budgeted for 859. Today as we sit here, we’re at 853," McKinley said.
As Councilman Scotty Johnson explained, keeping firefighters and police officers on staff has become increasingly challenging.
“The younger generation is not staying as long as we did," Johnson said.
"Essentially, we're doing more with less," McKinley told WCPO.
The fire chief reported that his department is currently five engines below where they should be, and the process of getting new engines in the fleet can't be fixed overnight.
"Typically we keep a fire engine for 10 years or 100,000 miles," McKinley said.
He said it may take about three to four years to possess a new engine after purchasing.
Another issue affecting the Cincinnati Police Department is updating and improving facilities, including the District 4 station in Avondale.
"It is literally a concrete box, which was great for a police station in the 70s. (The) problem with that is now, with internet, Bluetooth, all of that, that concrete box doesn’t work for us anymore," Theetge said.
Both departments said they expect to get the funding they need to keep improving and supporting their staff.
