The Richmond Police Department is continuing to shrink in size.

In speaking before City Council this week, Police Chief Gerald M. Smith reported the force has 102 vacant positions.

That’s an increase of 22 vacancies from early September, when the chief reported 80 vacancies in a letter to the Free Press.

That’s a big hit to a force that is authorized to have 756 sworn officers, including 40 recruits. Chief Smith indicated that some detectives occasionally have had to be redeployed to fill some of the vacancies in patrol that mandatory overtime has not been able to fix.

Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell, 8th District, said Richmond residents are becoming more aware of the situation. She said she hears about it from people who wonder “where the police are” and say it is taking far longer to get police responses to calls.

Chief Smith acknowledged to City Council on Tuesday that a heavier burden is falling on the men and women who remain on the force. He said the force is “worn out” and that morale has declined. He said the challenges of the past 20 months, ranging from the pandemic to the racial justice demonstrations, coupled with the falling numbers have left everyone “exhausted.”

However, the vacancy level may be worse than Chief Smith portrayed in his public testimony, according City Council members.

On July 1, when the current 2021-22 fiscal year began, the city’s adopted budget listed 39 sworn police positions that were frozen.

Those positions were vacant and frozen by Mayor Levar M. Stoney’s administration in an attempt to save money, a move that City Council endorsed in approving the budget.

The Free Press was told that the vacancy numbers Chief Smith reported did not include the frozen positions. Adding the 39 frozen positions to the current 102 vacancies raises the total to 141 vacant positions.

The police force has always had attrition, Chief Smith said, with 45 to 50 officers leaving annually before the pandemic. But those numbers have skyrocketed since the pandemic began, he said.

In 2020, 73 sworn officers left the force, and so far in 2021, 83 have left, Chief Smith reported.

Of the 156 officers who have left during the two-year period, 99 resigned and left for other opportunities; 46 retired; nine were terminated or quit to avoid being fired; and two died.

The Free Press also has been told that as many as 20 more officers have submitted resignations or retirement papers and would be out the door by the new year.

Chief Smith told the council that some items are being overlooked in order to help keep people on the police force. For example, he said uniformed officers no longer are being dinged for having beards or leaving tattoos uncovered.

Chief Smith said the biggest challenge is filling the vacancies.

He reported that five of the officers who resigned are returning and that a new recruit class of 20 will complete the academy in three weeks. But that totals only 25 new people, far too few to fill the vacancies.

And for 2022, only 19 people have quali- fied for new police academy classes — 16 for a class that will graduate in March and three for a class that will start next fall.

Chief Smith reported that the department, like many across the country, is struggling to recruit, noting that applications are down more than 50 percent. He attributed the decline in part to officers’ concerns that their role in the community is no longer appreciated.

But Richmond also is paying less than other nearby departments. A six-year veteran in Richmond now makes about the same annual salary as a first-year officer in neighboring police forces, the Free Press has been told.

Richmond officers are not only being recruited by other departments, but also are being lured to leave by higher paying opportunities in other fields.

Richmond has started a salary study of police and firefighter pay, and a council resolution that is expected to pass at the Nov. 8 meeting calls for the city administration to implement the recommendations as a top priority in the 2022-23 budget.

Lincoln Saunders, the city’s chief admin- istrative officer, told a council committee last week that his preliminary estimates suggest the city is likely to spend $60 million over the next five years to improve salaries for public safety officers.