Fountain Valley police provide recruitment update, target full staffing in 2027

Fountain Valley officials this week heard a progress report on the efforts that have been made to ease an ongoing police department staffing shortage.

Police Chief Craig Heredia provided the update during a City Council study session Tuesday, sharing that a gap had been closed — from 12 vacancies when he joined the department in February to eight — for the department’s authorized allotment of 64 sworn officers.

“Historically, as a city, we have only sent two recruits to the academy every fiscal year,” Heredia said during the meeting“... If we stayed true to that prior practice, we’d be able to catch up in four years’ time, as long as nobody left, and as long as there are no more retirements between now and then …

“We saw that as a challenge, and we have since fixed that. We had four recruits that graduated earlier this year, … we have two more that are starting this month, hopefully another two that are going to go in October, and the balance is going to be sent in January to the Golden West Police Academy.”

Fountain Valley is also looking at putting recruits in other academies, including the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy, in an effort to put them into the field training officer program sooner.

“We want to move with a sense of urgency on all of these positions,” Heredia said. “With that plan outlined, my goal and my hope is that we will be fully staffed on the sworn side by middle to late next year.”

There are also five professional services positions unfilled, which includes two dispatchers, two records staff members, and a support services supervisor. Candidates for the dispatcher and record clerks positions, Heredia said, are in the hiring process.

In June, council members unanimously voted to make permanent a police incentive hiring program, which provides $10,000 to officers from other agencies to transfer to Fountain Valley. Lateral dispatchers also receive a $5,000 award for making the move.

Fountain Valley’s efforts to spread the word of opportunities within the department have included outreach at community events, messaging on an electronic billboard along the 405 Freeway, and a social media campaign.

While he acknowledged the change in approach in sending more recruits to the academy, Councilman Glenn Grandis remained concerned with the timeline to build the department up to a full complement of officers. He said he would like to see the city to “get more creative” and hire five officers from other departments within the next six months.

“I think we’re in a crisis mode right now, being this far below [full staffing],” Grandis said. “We’ve got officers working incredible amounts of overtime. We have officers that are not doing everything we need them to do because they’re doing patrol and stuff they have to do.”