Philly police officials want to ease reading and fitness requirements for recruits after mass officer exodus

Philadelphia police officials and the city’s top legislative leader want the state to relax reading and fitness requirements for police recruits as the department struggles with a persistent staffing crisis.

In a letter this week to leaders of the General Assembly in Harrisburg, public safety officials asked legislators to amend a state law that requires recruits meet specific reading and fitness benchmarks before they can enroll in the police academy.

Instead, city officials said, Philadelphia should be permitted to enroll recruits based on requirements set by the city and allow cadets to demonstrate proficiency on state tests later in their nine-month training regimen. The letter proposes a three-year term for the change in law.

City Council President Darrell L. Clarke, the lead signatory on the letter, said the city could in the coming years be short 1,000 officers.

“The city of Philadelphia should have more flexibility,” he said. “It’s a reasonable ask, and I think it will markedly increase the ability for us to deal with this.”

The letter was dated Tuesday and also signed by Interim Police Commissioner John M. Stanford, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 John McNesby, and Sheriff Rochelle Bilal.

Mayor Jim Kenney, who has for several years said police staffing is dangerously low, did not sign the letter. His office did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

» READ MORE: Amid a shortage of officers, Philadelphia police enrolled its largest group of recruits in years

The letter was addressed to House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) and Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland). A spokesperson for Ward said her office hadn’t seen the letter.

Nicole Reigelman, a spokesperson for McClinton’s office, said staff have been “working with state and local stakeholders to explore legislative remedies to ease recruitment and retention challenges for the Philadelphia Police Department and departments across the commonwealth.”

She said the office is “hopeful that the legislature will be able to assist local government in their recruiting efforts.”

It’s unclear whether the General Assembly would consider granting a Philadelphia-specific exception for police hiring rules. But the ask underscores the lengths to which the city is willing to go to fill hundreds of vacancies in the Police Department, which has seen a mass exodus of officers over the past three years.

Since 2020, the Police Department has operated with a significant shortage of officers. The department has roughly 6,500 employees despite budgeting for 7,400, and more than 800 police officers are enrolled in the Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), meaning they intend to retire within the next four years.

Police brass and city leaders have blamed a variety of factors, including pandemic-related restrictions on gathering that made recruiting challenging, and a nationwide shortage of recruits following the racial justice movement that challenged law enforcement’s role in society.

The city has tried a handful of initiatives to counteract the tide of resignations and retirements, including earmarking $3 million in new funding for recruiting campaigns. The administration last year lifted a rule for police recruits that requires most municipal workers to live in the city for a year before applying for a job.

Officials have also said the battery of tests that recruits must take and pass before they can enroll in the police academy have limited hiring.

During a City Council hearing last year, the department said most applicants failed the screening programs, using a 2021 recruiting class as an example. The department said nearly 3,800 applicants were invited to attend a spring orientation. But only 900 showed up, and more than 500 failed the reading or agility test.

Staff writer Gillian McGoldrick contributed to this article.