CLEVELAND — Cleveland’s Public Safety division delivered a presentation on Wednesday to address staffing concerns for the city’s fire and police departments. 

What You Need To Know

  • Cleveland is 49 EMTs and 187 patrol officers shy of what it budgeted for 2021

  • The city and schools are working toward an agreement to use South High School as a training facility

  • A new training facility would allow for multiple classes at the same time, officials said

  • Cleveland’s safety director said there are enough EMTs is “sufficient” to provide service

As of this week, 49 of the city’s budgeted 271 emergency medical technician positions remain unfilled, according to city statistics. Safety Director Karrie Howard said the city will begin training a class of 36 EMTs Aug. 2.

Howard said despite the deficiencies with staffing, the number of EMTs is “sufficient” to provide service.

For the police division, 187 of the city’s 1,334 patrol officer positions are unfilled. Cleveland Police is in the process of training 94 new officers. 

Part of the city’s plan to increase staffing is to retrofit former South High School into a training facility for the police and fire departments. Howard told councilmembers on Wednesday the new training facility would allow the city to train multiple recruiting classes at the same time. 

Last month, the Cleveland Metropolitan School District announced that it would sell the high school to the city at a cost of $435,000. In return, the city would lease the space for use for field trips for students preparing to become future first responders. The school district will maintain and operate the building for the first year of the agreement. 

Ward 8 Council Member Michae Polensek expressed frustration that the City Council was left out of the process. He claimed that Public Safety officials did not discuss the training facility with the council before entering discussions with the school district. 

“Here it is, it is dropped on us and supposedly we are going to need all this money to redo the facility, I am not happy with the process,” he said. “There should have been some dialog.” 

Ward 6 Council Member Blaine Griffin defended the process, saying that there is a need for a larger training facility for the departments. 

During Wednesday’s hearing, Howard addressed brownouts of emergency medical services. He assured members that no lives are in jeopardy due to lack of staffing.

He added that measures such as recruitment and upcoming training classes will combat staffing shortages. 

Police and city officials acknowledged the balancing act between getting trained officers on patrol as soon as possible against fully training officers. 

Addressing Police Chief Calvin Williams, Council Member Basheer Jones said, “I understand your frustration. We say we want more police but then we also complain barbers have more hours [of training] than police officers. At the same time, you have officers driving… cars with bald tires and cars have over 200,000 miles on them.”

Howard noted that previous recruiting classes were composed primarily of white males. He said the incoming group of 94 officers, which includes 13 Hispanics, 14 African-Americans, is the most diverse class the city has recruited.