Cleveland, OH. - The City of Cleveland, Ohio, is attempting to eliminate the job search for their safety force. Mayor Justin Bibb announced his plan to eliminate 140 plus open positions to balance the City's budget.
Like the City of Cleveland, many cities are impacted by rash criminal behaviors by ill elements: guns, violence, robberies, burglaries, questionable police behavior, and carjackings. Rather than eliminate the open positions, other cities, such as Akron, OH, is beefing up their marketing efforts and strategic methodologies. Akron aggressively seeks police officers from the City of Cleveland with an aggressive billboard campaign.
In November of 2022, Newsnet 5 reported that the City of Cleveland is dangerously understaffed and may worsen. They said that approximately 30% of officers are eligible to retire. Like police departments across the country, Cleveland's recruiting efforts of police officers failed. In August of 2022, it was reported that the City of Cleveland had a graduating class of 25. Unfortunately, the following police academy class was canceled due to a lack of participants.
During Justin Bibb's campaign for Mayor, Bibb promised Clevelanders that if elected, he would increase the police workforce and hire a marketing firm to help the City attract police officers. Since his tenure as Cleveland's Mayor, Bibb's strategic recruitment efforts has fallen by the wayside. A recent budget report reported that the Bibb Administration is removing 140 open police positions to help balance the 2023 City of Cleveland's budget. As of December 2022, the City of Cleveland was short almost 300 officers, according to Fox 8 news I-Team. To better understand this equation, should the Bibb administration do away with 140 positions for police personnel, the City would be down 160 officers - not that we have more police on the street, but only because the positions were eliminated to balance the budget.
Brown on Cleveland asked resident Geraldine Williams about the City of Akron Recruiting Police Officers from the City of Cleveland.
"I hope the City of Cleveland is just as aggressive with police recruitment efforts. Just because the City may get rid of open positions does not mean that recruitment goals are met. I hope this is not a case of attempting to hoodwink and deceive Clevelanders. If Akron is in our City recruiting, we should've been just as aggressive in exchanging the favor. Clevelanders, we deserve to be safe just like any other City - we also want quality candidates and police officers that know our communities," scoffed Cleveland Resident and Advocate Geraldine Williams.
Brown on Cleveland will continue to follow this story from Akron and Cleveland, OH.
This article coincides with the article about the City of Akron recruiting police candidates from the City of Cleveland.
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