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Woodland police report shows staffing shortfall and rising response times in first half of 2025
Summary
The Woodland Police Department presented its semiannual report covering Jan. 1–June 30, 2025, highlighting a nine-post staffing shortfall and sustained overtime costs that, officials said, have contributed to longer priority-one response times.
The Woodland Police Department presented its semiannual report for Jan. 1–June 30, 2025, to the City Council on Oct. 7, detailing a persistent staffing shortfall, high overtime costs and changes in response-time metrics.
Chief Ryan Kinnett told council members the department had 92 authorized full-time positions but was short nine positions during the reporting period. "Our budget for overtime is to the tune of about $500,000, and we spend almost double that," Kinnett said, citing sustained overtime as a major operational pressure.
Kinnett said staffing gaps include officers in training, long-term injuries and hard vacancies, and he described how recruitment, training pipelines and reserve programs are being used to fill roles faster. He noted the time needed to train officers: background checks, a six-month academy and four-to-six months of field training.
The report showed an increase in priority-one response times. Kinnett said the prior period—s priority-one response time was "7 minutes and 2 seconds" and that the current reporting period saw response times increase by about one minute; he linked the change to patrol staffing levels.
Crime and service data in the presentation included roughly 21,000 calls for service over the year (about 118 calls per day), a top set of call types led by homeless complaints, welfare checks and alarm calls, and a large number of officer-initiated stops and citations. Kinnett also highlighted the department—s co-responder model and mental-health clinicians: the team increased service offers and recorded 54 mental-health holds during the period.
Council members asked questions about recruitment and retention, and Mayor Pro Tem Tom Stallard and others urged development of pipelines and specialized assignments to retain staff. Kinnett said the department is piloting technology to reduce time spent on report writing and described plans to expand reserve-level positions and part-time community-service officers to shorten the time to place people on patrol.
The report was informational; council did not take action on the item.
