Sequim police leaders look to add two more full-time officers to their ranks to account for recent retirements, injuries and attrition.
Police chief Sheri Crain said they’ve seen an “unprecedented” amount of change in staffing levels since May 2022 with around five of 20 full time officers unable to perform regular duties because of a “potpourri of reasons.”
“We have so many holes, we’re lucky to have what we got,” Crain told Sequim city councilors on April 10. “We’re covering gaps and have to backfill.”
Adding the positions could cost about $125,000 more in the city’s budget for the remainder of the year, said Sue Hagener, Sequim’s director of administrative services.
City leaders report they expect to see a decline in overtime this year after it increased for the police department by $56,000 (54 percent) from 2021 to 2022. If the police officer additions are approved, city staff would ask for a specific budget amendment change later in the year.
A required public hearing to approve an ordinance to amend the city’s 2023 budget is set for 6 p.m. Monday, April 24, in a hybrid meeting at the Sequim Civic Center, 152 W. Cedar St.
The new positions would be a sergeant and officer, according to city documents.
“What that will allow us to do is get ahead of the hiring game,” Crain said.
With 22 full-time employees, she said, it “allows us a whole lot of flexibility.”
However, bringing new officers on will take time, Crain reported in an online presentation to the city council. She said it can take up to a year-and-a-half for an officer to train and perform regular policing duties.
Officer Ella Mildon was hired in February and awaits entry into the Basic Law Enforcement Academy later this summer, due to a backlog of statewide candidates as “everyone is trying to send their people in at once,” Crain said.
With 20 full-time officers budgeted the last four years, Sequim Police Department has seen four retirements/resignations since 2021, and Crain, and at least two more officers become retirement eligible in 2024 and 2025, according to city staff.
Crain referred to pending retirements as a “silver tsunami” that’s a nationwide workforce issue affecting Sequim, too.
Call load in Sequim continues to grow along with the population.
In her online presentation, Crain said the officer-per-call ratio has stayed consistent for most of the last 20 years, which she said is calculated conservatively and doesn’t include “proactive” police work.
“I think we’re balanced,” she said of officers responding to calls while solving crimes and performing traffic stops.
Public records requests
This spring/summer, the Sequim Police Department plans to shift to using body cams and dash cams for the first time through the company LensLock.
Crain said in interview, they plan to have a tentative soft launch in May followed by full implementation in June.
Footage will be kept on an online cloud, and she said they are concerned about the potential volume of public information requests regarding footage and its impact on staff time, but “the actual process should be much easier than 10 years ago.”
Sequim’s assistant city clerk Heather Robley said the city will shift to a new public records request system, NextRequest, similar to Clallam County’s system.
“It’s user-friendly (and) visually, it’s great,” she said.
In an April 10 presentation, Robley said the city received 338 public records requests in 2022 that took 510 hours of staff time and cost the city about $25,000.
In previous years, record requests were:
• 2021: 371 requests, 541 hours of staff time, costing about $23,700
• 2020: 335 requests, 662 hours of staff time, $31,000
• 2019: 330 requests, 559 hours of staff time, $26,000.
