The Oak Park Police Department still has a lot of ground to make up to reach its staffing goals, according to Police Chief Shatonya Johnson.
The department is presently short 30 sworn officers from its target for a fully staffed department, as the department operates at more than a 25% deficit from its ideal officer count. Johnson said she believes the department can get from its current staff of 86 sworn officers to its goal of 116 by “mid 2026.”
With that goal in mind, recruiting is part of her day-to-day year-round.
“We’re just doing a huge push,” said Johnson, who took over as chief of police in October 2022 after more than 20 years with the department. “I am personally outside recruiting every day I’m not in the police department.
The department hired 18 officers last year and has hired three more so far this year, Johnson said.
The department had been down 35 officers in May 2024, according to a report Johnson gave to the village board at the time. During that meeting, Johnson had said it was the department’s goal to have 95 sworn officers on staff by the end of 2024.
Oak Park began 2019 with 106 sworn officers, but that year more than a dozen officers reached the top of the village’s pension scale after 30 years of service and retired. The department’s staffing hasn’t recovered since, as retirements and resignations have outpaced hiring, Johnson said.
“That trend has just continued,” Johnson said. “At the start of 2022 we had 103 officers, by the end of 2024 we were at 85.”
In response to the officer short fall, the department had to pull two community policing officers into patrol positions last year. Both of those officers will be returning to the community policing unit by the end of this month as some new recruits finish their training, Johnson said.
Police departments nationwide have struggled with reaching their staffing goals in recent years. A 2024 report by the Police Executive Research Forum found that the total number of sworn officers nationwide had dropped by about 5% and a similar survey by the International Association of Chiefs of Police last year found that departments were operating with a roughly 10% officer staffing deficit on average.
In response to the hiring deficit, Oak Park has changed officer compensation and benefits to try and bring more police recruits into the fold, including salary increases, generous family leave offerings, $4,000 sign on bonuses to recruits who earn spots as patrol officers, retention bonuses and approved hiring for lateral transfers from other police departments.
“I believe we’re the first department in Illinois, or at least in Chicagoland, to offer 6 weeks paid parental leave to all officers,” Johnson said.
The starting salary for a new officer hire without experience is now just over $90,000, with a raise that kicks in after 18 months on the force.
Oak Park has also increased the frequency it offers its police exam, as what was once an annual test is now offered three times a year, Johnson said.
Another way that Johnson is pushing to make up the short fall is by recruiting more women to be officers.
“The goal is for 30% of our officers to be women by 2030,” Johnson said. “As opposed to just posting that we’re hiring, we’re actually going out and meeting people where they are.”
The department is also hiring for two new civilian positions — a community engagement manager who will work to develop the department’s online presence and community outreach work and a strategic intelligence manager who will assist the department with data analysis work, Johnson said.
While the department has a significant numbers issue to overcome, Johnson believes the Oak Park police department has made great strides to be an attractive place to work by improving compensation and maintaining a modern, professional culture where officers can grow.
“We’re a family, we support each other but we also hold each other accountable,” she said. “We try to keep our officers ahead of what’s going on in law enforcement. Because we are definitely a police department that operates from a community policing set of measures.”
