AGENDA DATE: 10/15/2025
TITLE:
Public Safety Staffing Studies Report Work Session
SUBJECT/PROPOSAL/REQUEST: The consultant from ESCI will present an executive summary of the Police and Fire Rescue reports. This presentation will be led by the County’s Chief Operating Officer and supported by both the Police Chief and the Fire Chief.
ITEM TYPE: Regular Information Item
STAFF CONTACT(S): Richardson, Henry, Herrick, Shifflett
PRESENTER (S): Kristy Shifflett, Robert Graff of Emergency Services Consulting International (ESCI)
LEGAL REVIEW: Not Required
REVIEWED BY: Jeffrey B. Richardson
BACKGROUND: The County contracts external assessments to provide benchmarking and analysis on functional capabilities to meet national and local standards and comparison reports with other Virginia localities. These assessments often provide recommendations for long range planning and roadmaps for financial analysis and staffing. Early in 2025, the County of Albemarle retained Emergency Services Consulting International (ESCI) to conduct a comprehensive staffing study for the Albemarle County Police and Fire Rescue departments. The research included collection of data, interviews with staff, onsite tours of the County facilities, experiencing the physical size and scale of the county, and multiple meetings with command staff from each department.
The staffing study was designed to provide the County with a detailed understanding of current and future needs and includes tiered findings and recommendations for moving forward regarding the department’s staffing for daily operations, emergencies, and administrative support functions. As such, it is designed to assist the departments with quantifying current service delivery, evaluating service delivery and response performance, identifying forecast growth and emergent conditions, and developing strategies to meet anticipated needs and future service demand. Data from national best practices in fire service, policing, laws of the commonwealth, geographic information data, and local calls for service were used in the creation of this report.
STRATEGIC PLAN: Safety & Well-being: Nurture a safe and healthy community.
DISCUSSION: While two teams of experts created individual reports from both the Police Department and the Fire Rescue department, shared challenges were found. Both departments have seen service demands grow faster than staffing, resulting in a reliance on overtime and daily reassignments to maintain coverage. The departments are strained by frequently managing multiple simultaneous calls. Sworn staff are found to work in non-core tasks; attrition and training timelines create gaps.
Albemarle County Police Department (ACPD) serves a large, mixed-density jurisdiction experiencing steady growth. Over the last five years, overall incident volume and public-generated calls have risen, while key call types - motor vehicle collisions, suspicious activity, disorder, and larceny - dominate time on task. Geography and call mix stretch patrol availability and supervisory bandwidth. Concurrency analysis shows ACPD frequently manages multiple incidents at once (most commonly 3-5 simultaneous calls, with periodic spikes above 10). Ten-hour staggered shifts provide overlap but are not consistently aligned to peak temporal and geographic demand; officers are routinely pulled from lower-demand zones to cover hotspots, increasing travel time and reducing presence. Components of response time (alarm handling, travel, total) vary by sector, especially in more rural areas. Lean civilian capacity limits analytics and pulls sworn personnel into non-enforcement tasks.
Similarly, Albemarle County Fire Rescue’s (ACFR) growth has not kept pace with demand. Call volume has steadily increased, with emergency medical services (EMS) transport representing the largest share of workload. Due to volunteer response capacity continuing to decline in areas and the increased calls for service, dynamic staffing has become normalized. Ambulances and suppression units are reassigned daily to cover vacancies, and Advanced Life Support (ALS) coverage is inconsistent, especially in rural areas. Battalion Chief coverage requires further depth to ensure a safe span of control across the County’s geography. Administrative staffing gaps burden operational leaders, pulling them into procurement, HR, and logistics work outside their core role. Without relief, these challenges erode service reliability, impact firefighter wellness, and strain the system’s ability to meet national performance benchmarks.
The reports provide tiered recommendations to stabilize and strengthen operations, develop leadership, enhance support systems, and promote sustainability for the County Administration and Board of Supervisors to consider through long-range financial and strategic planning.
BUDGET IMPACT: There is no budget impact associated with this work session.
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
Staff recommend the Board receive the presentation as an informational item.
ATTACHMENTS:
Attachment A: Albemarle County VA Fire Rescue Staffing Study Draft 2025
Attachment B: Albemarle County VA Police Staffing Study Draft 2025