Longmont public-safety leaders told the City Council on Sept. 2 that patrol and fire staffing have not kept pace with population growth and rising call complexity, and they presented a multi-year plan to add sworn personnel alongside professional-support hires.

Public-safety staff said the number of sworn officers assigned to patrol is effectively unchanged since 2009 (about 64'65 officers), while priority calls for service increased by about 84% in the last four years. The department noted higher work demands including expanded discovery obligations, mandatory body-worn camera recording, greater mental-health and homelessness response, and more technologically complex investigations.

James (JV) Brown, presenting the department's staffing analysis, proposed raising Longmont's sworn police staffing to about 2 officers per 1,000 residents by 2030. The plan would add roughly 40 police positions (plus supervisory ranks) and proposes a phased approach that includes a subset of transitional hires to reduce recruitment lag caused by annual turnover (department turnover runs about 10% for sworn ranks). Brown said the phased plan would require adding supervisory roles and professional positions'for records, property and evidence, and analytics'to reduce officers' non-patrol workload.

On the fire side, staff proposed a goal of about 1.25 firefighters per 1,000 residents, requiring roughly 27 additional positions phased over several years. The department said expanding fire staffing would also enable consideration of a city ambulance service, which would carry separate revenue and cost implications.

Contingency options: officials said that if the city cannot add positions, the department would face hard choices, including eliminating or reducing some programs (case management, collaborative services, a grant coordinator, parts of the restorative-justice collaboration, reductions to canine or SWAT capacity, or contracting changes such as the humane-society animal-control contract). Brown stressed none of those options were desirable and said each would reduce services the community currently receives.

Next steps: staff urged council to consider the phased hiring plan and noted a partial over-hire budget already proposed for police recruitment to reduce future gaps; staff will return with cost estimates and funding options for fall budget deliberations.