At a Chattanooga City Council session, Chattanooga Police Department Interim Chief Judy Chambers presented FY2026 budget details and urged council to consider pay increases and staffing actions to retain officers amid high overtime, operational vacancies and growing calls for service.

Chambers told council the department is budgeted for 477 sworn positions but currently short on the street; she said the department is operating with roughly 401 active field officers and also counts 57 budgeted vacancies and about 71 operational vacancies in total. “What I'm asking for is the opportunity to be able to retain the 4 77,” Chambers said, urging council support to stabilize staffing.

Personnel makes up about 78.45% of the department’s budget, Chambers said; the department plans to add or preserve sworn positions while also expanding civilian professional roles such as crisis responders and victim advocates. She cited several key numbers: 477 budgeted sworn positions; 9,561.25 overtime hours per year (about 26.2 overtime hours per day on average); and the department’s violent‑crime rate of about 882.75 incidents per 100,000 residents. Chambers said those measures show why Chattanooga needs a different staffing target than lower‑crime jurisdictions.

Chambers and city staff showed a comparative metric they used to estimate an appropriate force size. Based on a cohort of peer agencies and violent‑crime rates, the average staffing level for cities with similar violent‑crime burdens is about 2.72 officers per 1,000 residents — a level that would equate to roughly 509 sworn officers for Chattanooga. Chambers said she was not asking the council to fund 509 immediately but asked that council enable the department to reach and hold 477 officers and to support a recruiting and retention plan.

On compensation, Chambers described recruitment and retention losses to nearby agencies and to the Tennessee Highway Patrol; she said multiple officers left for higher pay elsewhere. Department leaders provided a market snapshot showing a roughly $10,000 gap between Chattanooga’s starting pay and the peer average (an open‑source average starting pay of about $58,000 vs. Chattanooga’s mid‑$40,000 starting pay for cadets and officers). She presented an estimate used in budget discussions: an approximate $9 million annual increase for police compensation to move the department toward the competitive range discussed in council budget talks (city staff are finalizing a proposal for council consideration).

Chambers also reviewed operations costs that have increased or that are difficult to reduce: dispatch (Hamilton County 911) pass‑through payments, body‑camera and in‑car camera contracts, utilities at the service center, radio maintenance, and vehicle lease and fuel costs. She said the vehicle operations line was reduced by 50% in 2021 and the department has been overspending that category because it now has more officers and needs more vehicles and maintenance than the line covers.

Chambers credited community interventions that are part of the city’s broader public‑safety approach. Programs discussed by council and the chief included the chain‑breakers outreach effort and Community Haven; Chambers said those partnerships can reduce retaliatory violence and work alongside policing. She also described the department’s investments in leadership development and training and the costs associated with mandatory testing, certifications and range/ammunition budgets.

Council members pressed for details on how pay changes would be phased and what return on investment the city could expect. Chambers said the department has a plan to prioritize funds toward entry‑level compensation and ranks most affected by attrition while protecting against pay compression (higher‑ranking positions earning less than subordinates). City staff were finishing a formal proposal for the council’s upcoming budget session.

Chambers closed by urging support for recruiting, retention and the pay plan and by describing culture and leadership steps already under way that she said were reducing unexpected attrition.

Contact: Chief Judy Chambers, Chattanooga Police Department (department contact provided during the meeting).