Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertferger Asks City Council for More Officers
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WHEELING -- Members of Wheeling City Council met with Wheeling Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger Tuesday to discuss the needs of the Wheeling Police Department, especially staffing. Schwertfeger said he could use more.
This has been an ongoing conversation among city leaders in recent months, and Tuesday's discussion comes in the wake of the release of the Wheeling Police Department's annual year-end crime statistics. During 2020, the crime data analysis showed a slight increase in serious crimes in the city over the previous year's figures.
Councilman Ben Seidler, chairman of the Public Safety Committee of council, called for the discussion about the possibility of increasing police staffing to help fight crime in the city and to help the police department perform its duties more efficiently.
Following Tuesday's virtual meeting of the Public Safety Committee of Council and the police chief, Seidler asked Schwertfeger and Wheeling City Manager Robert Herron to examine the current staffing levels to see if it would be feasible to bring additional officers on board.
"Can we please look at the number and evaluate increasing that number to a point that allows us to deal with a buffer, as we're transitioning people in and out and so forth, so we can have a full-time staff of the actual number we're looking for, not just an allocated head count?" Seidler asked.
Schwertfeger noted that there were two vacancies in the department and nine officers were in various stages of training, which has been delayed at the police academy because of COVID-related cancellations of sessions.
The chief said that, technically, WPD currently operates with 63 officers. When he took the job a little over eight years ago, he said, the staffing level was at 87 officers. Shortly after his arrival, that number was reduced in the wake of a loss of grant funding. Schwertfeger recommended a roster of 83 to 85 officers.
"That's a large ticket item though," he said. Ten police positions are going to cost the city $620,000 plus per year."
The department already down about 10 officers from its current staffing allotment because of the vacancies and new officers in training and not yet on the streets. Councilman Dave Palmer, vice chairman of the Public Safety Committee, noted that the city needs to focus on bringing the department up to a full complement of officers under its current staffing allocation before trying to hire more.
But Schwertfeger noted that he is recommending adding officers.
"We have half of the detectives we need in the city of Wheeling right now," the chief said. "We only have five general investigators who are investigating crimes, plus three from the drug task force. The city has been approached by Ohio County Schools. They want us to put Wheeling Police officers in PRO (Prevention Resource Officer) positions, and that's going to require adding staff as well if the county schools chose to take that path."
Schools that request PROs typically fund at least nine months of the officers' salaries for their work on campuses during the school year, the chief noted.
Schwertfeger said like other police departments across the nation — the Wheeling PD is never at a point where it is fully staffed, simply because of turnover that occurs on a regular basis.
Mayor Glenn Elliott noted that past administrations looked at a ratio between the city's population as it relates to the number of police officers on staff. With a reduction in population, conventional wisdom called for a reduction in police officers.
Schwertfeger said there are many factors that dictate staffing needs, including not only people residing in the city but people visiting or working in the city, as well as other variables.
Although the annual crime statistics showed a slight 3.8 percent bump in serious crime last year, Schwertfeger noted that this was a small increase compared not only to other cities but to Wheeling itself in some previous years. In 2016, there was a 10-percent increase in serious crime, followed by another 2-percent increase in 2017. Last year, the number of violent crimes was up, but it barely rose to 1 percent above numbers from the previous year.
Seidler said his ward that includes Wheeling Island, North Wheeling and other Ward 2 neighborhoods, has "a lot of blight and a lot of issues" that involve crime.
"At the end of the day, I want our neighborhood to be safer," Seidler told Schwertfeger. "I want to make sure you guys have any and all resources that you need in order to do your jobs effectively. ... I don't want to leave the status quo in place."