Longmont public safety leaders outline multi-year staffing shortfall and contingency cuts

Longmont public-safety staff told the City Council on Sept. 2 that the city’s police and fire staffing levels have not kept pace with population and workload growth and presented a phased plan to increase sworn staffing over the next five years.

Presenters said Longmont’s current active patrol staffing is roughly unchanged since 2009 while priority calls for service and the complexity of incidents have risen sharply. The presenters proposed a target to reach roughly 2.0 sworn police officers per 1,000 residents — a level the staff said would require about 40 additional police positions, including supervisory roles, when fully phased in. For fire, staff proposed a target of about 1.25 sworn firefighters per 1,000 residents, which they estimated would require roughly 27 additional firefighter positions.

Public-safety staff also proposed staffing investments in professional support roles — records, property and evidence, EMS coordination, inspections and facilities management — to reduce the burden on sworn officers and improve investigative and administrative throughput.

The presenters cautioned that hiring alone will not immediately reduce workload: Longmont’s officer cohort is less experienced — roughly three-quarters of current patrol officers have five or fewer years of service — and new hires require extensive training before they become fully productive. Staff recommended a phased approach and suggested using transitional “overhire” positions to mitigate the delay between separations and new officers becoming operational.

If the city cannot add staff, presenters delivered a list of contingency cuts estimated to save roughly $3.2 million and equivalent to about 19 sworn positions. Those possible reductions — which presenters characterized as undesirable — included eliminating or reducing several programs and positions: the collaborative services chief position, the grant coordinator, the case-management program and related grant-funded positions; one or more core paramedics that support the co-response (mental-health) model; a victim-advocate position; reductions to the canine and SWAT units; cuts to collaborative restorative-justice and human-services partnership contracts; and reductions in the city’s humane-society/animal-control contract.

“None of the options I’m about to go through are good options,” one presenter said as staff described contingency measures. The presenters urged the council to consider a phased staffing plan and to weigh hiring investments against long-term public-safety risks and the potential fiscal impacts of hiring later (higher overtime, recruitment pressures and lost institutional knowledge).

Why it matters: The public-safety fund and general fund face revenue pressure, and lawmakers must decide between raising revenue, reallocating existing funds, or trimming services should the council not fund the requested hires. Staff stressed that many contingency cuts would reduce important public-safety programs that residents and partners value.

Council direction and next steps: Councilors asked for more granular cost estimates and alternatives; staff said they will return with costed hiring schedules, proposed funding pathways and updated pro formas that reflect the budget assumptions under discussion.

Sources: Public-safety staffing presentation and Q&A at the Sept. 2 Longmont City Council study session; staff comments and projected staffing tallies.