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Carlsbad police chief outlines staffing shortfalls; council asks for near-term action on six positions
Summary
Police Chief Christy Calderwood and Assistant Chief Reid Shipley presented a five-year staffing analysis that identified 19 possible positions; the council unanimously asked the city manager to return ASAP with an action to fund six positions for the upcoming budget year.
Police Chief Christy Calderwood and Assistant Chief Reid Shipley presented a department-wide staffing and workload review and asked the council to consider multi-year staffing additions to address rising workload, training demands and retention challenges.
Chief Calderwood said the department has been operating with “professional, well trained staff” but faces retention and workload pressures that have reduced deployable staffing. She noted Carlsbad had 1.14 sworn officers per 1,000 residents in FY 2023–24 — near the lowest in the region — and that the department lost 63 officers over five years to attrition and other causes.
Why it matters
City staff said population, daytime workers and visitors increase the number of people served daily to roughly 197,000, and that planned housing growth…
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