On Tuesday, the Walnut Creek Police Officers Association sounded the alarm on staffing levels and urged the city to address retention and hiring within the Walnut Creek Police Department.
The presentation came weeks after Pittsburg Police Officers Association made a similar plea at their meeting calling on the City of Pittsburg to address retention issues.
Shane Blatz, POA President, discussed the state of law enforcement which is not just limited to the City of Walnut Creek, but they were struggling as an industry. They were trying to recover from 2020-21 dealing with public scrutiny and riots when personnel simply left the field.
“Still to this day, it’s been really hard for a lot of agencies, mostly California and specifically the Bay Area, so Walnut Creek has been struggling but we are not unique by any means,” explained Blatz.
According to the staffing levels, Walnut Creek Police have a total of 76 police personnel allocated, with 73 actual sworn personnel – which excludes academy recruits. They also have 8 on injury. Full duty sworn personnel is at just 61 of the 85 officers.
“When you actually do the subtraction of trainees, recruits and injuries, what you are looking at for total sworn solo police officers is that we have 61 of us out of the total 85,” said Blatz adding they have had 3 retirements already this year and 3 more coming.
The patrol bureau has 50 budgeted positions; however, 46 positions are filled but due to injuries, 32 are currently deployed.
According to Blatz, the hiring of a new officer could take 4-8 months. After being hired, they enter a 6-month police academy followed by another 4-6 months in a field training program. In total, it could take 15-18 months for a new officer while a lateral hire is 9-11 months.
Blatz also shared the expected departures:
- 2 officers heading to Napa PD
- 1 officer leaving in July 2025 to pursue a nursing career
- 1 officer set to retire Summer 2025
- Two sworn personnel expected to retire in December 2025
- Several sworn personnel retirement eligible 2025-26.
Blatz then shared the impact of low staffing on the City of Walnut Creek which include:
- Response times increase
- Investigations case loads increase and clearance rates lower
- Lower WCPD presence, especially Downtown and in residential neighborhoods
- Declining of officer wellness and morale
- Increased difficultly to attract new hires
- Increased Officer exposure to injuries and trauma
- Increased risk of Officer burn out.
Blatz also shared the importance of institutional knowledge and how Walnut Creek, and other agencies are struggling to keep veteran cops.
“The institutional knowledge ecosystem that our industry has had for decades, I’ve benefited form it, my colleagues have benefited from this. We have grown up with our big brothers and big sisters who have passed on all this experience from policing, but due to 2020, we lost a lot of our veteran officers. So there is a huge influx of new officers that are working trying to learn the job and policing as you get older, the academy you learn its black and white, but as you get older, its more of an art than a science,” explained Blatz. “A lot of agencies are struggling with this lack of veteran officers to continue that eco system which has been thrown off.
He also laid out the Walnut Creek Police Department challenges with hiring and retention stating that:
- Cost of Living: high prices of housing, interest rates, utilities and more
- Commute: half of POA members live over 30 miles away from Walnut Creek
- 5 officers living within Walnut Creek city limits, just 3 own houses
- Competitive labor market/lack of office growth opportunities
- Public Scrutiny.
He urged the City of Walnut Creek to get ahead of the market and be more competitive with salaries and benefits, public support and sufficient funding.
The Walnut Creek Dispatch center also presented to the city council to highlight the staffing issues. They have 12.5 employees currently but are allocated 14.5 positions—two recently left for other agencies. They called the current staffing levels insufficient. While they can operate with 12.5, its sub optimal noting two employees doesn’t seem like a big number, but its a 13.5% reduction in the workforce. In June, there will be 25 days of 30 where forced overtime will occur just to fill positions. They asked the city to begin the hiring process for dispatchers.
The presentations came after the Walnut Creek City Council held a public hearing under AB 2561 which provides a public status update on Walnut Creek’s job vacancies and recruitment efforts. The City’s vacancy data for fiscal year 2025, as of the most recent pay-period which ended on May 10, 2025 is 10.3%.
According to the city’s recruitment process improvements:
- EPIC Recruitment Platform was implemented by the Police Department to improve recruitment efforts by updating the look & feel of the police department recruitment process
- Streamlined the hiring process for police officer to provide a conditional offer letter the same day as the interview to increase efficiency and be more competitive in the market.
- Removed redundant background check components from the hiring process to reduce length of background check process – background check now less time by 1-2 weeks.
- Reduced the typing speed requirements for administrative support classification to align with moderns standards/best practices – they said this was more “inclusive” and removes barriers to employment.
- Augmented internal recruitment staffing using outside consultants and executive search firms such as Regional Government Services (RGS), to assist with recruitment and selection process.
- In 2023, the city had 90 positions vacant and reduced the vacancy rate from 14% to 8%.
For comparison in vacancies:
- 11%: City of Brentwood (Dec 2024)
- 10.3%: City of Walnut Creek (May 2025)
- 9.3%: City of Pittsburg (full year 2024)
- 2%: City of Oakley (May 2025)
Note – typical vacancy rates for cities is around 5-6%.
To watch the video from the council meeting, click here.
