Camas police chief details ‘critical’ staffing needs

What keeps Camas Police Chief Tina Jones up at night? There are a few things, actually — and all of them come back to the well-being of her staff members and of the overall Camas community.

During a presentation to the Camas City Council, on Monday, Nov. 18, Jones listed some of the questions that she says “keep her up at night.”

“Are we prepared to meet our community’s needs, especially during emergencies? Are we providing adequate support, guidance and training for our team, especially our newest members? Are we prepared for a significant critical incident?” Jones said. “Are we adequately balancing wellness for our staff with the ever-increasing demands of the job? How do we mitigate injuries to our team and the public?”

Jones also wonders, considering the fact that 13 Camas police officers — 43% of the department’s current sworn staff — will be eligible for retirement within the next one to five years, if her department is prepared to manage what she calls an impending “retirement cliff.”

As things stand today, Jones told the Council, the answer to that last question is likely, “No.”

“We are not prepared for mass retirements,” Jones stated in her presentation. “It will likely impact our call-response abilities.”

Jones, who replaced longtime police chief Mitch Lackey after his retirement and has led the department since July 2023, told the Council this week that the Camas Police Department has critical staffing shortages, especially when it comes to supervisory positions.

The industry standard is to have two police officers for every 1,000 residents, Jones said, and city leaders said several years ago that they would like to have 1.5 officers for every 1,000 residents, but Camas’ police staffing levels have not kept pace with either of those goals, Jones said. In fact, if the City were to achieve its goal of 1.5 officers per 1,000 residents, it would need to hire at least 10 more police officers.

“We have a really low crime rate, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have calls for service in our city,” Jones said Monday, detailing some of the calls her officers and detectives have responded to in the past year — including 24 calls that utilized the departments’ automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and helped saved people experiencing cardiac arrests; the roughly 3,500 traffic stops officers made in Camas during the first three quarters of 2024, and the 21 death investigations Camas detectives have assisted with in 2023, including three investigations involving children ages 6 and younger.

“This year has been rough,” Jones said, referring to the high number of death investigations her staff have taken on. “Child death investigations, industrial accidents, suicides, overdoses … but we take every death investigation seriously, and our detectives do a phenomenal job.”

When it comes to her department’s call-response times, Jones said she worries about the response times in the city’s west-side area.

“In the west side response area, it alarms me because, every month, we did not meet our call objectives,” Jones said Monday. “There are a lot of reasons for that. It’s not because our team is not being diligent. We’ve just gotten to the point that we have more area to cover, more traffic, more pedestrians. To get safely to a call takes time. This stresses my team out. It stresses me out. And I know it stresses the community out. When people call 911, they need us to be there.”

Jones said she doesn’t know how long the local police have been missing their call-response-time objectives in the city’s western region, which includes Prune Hill, but suspects it has been happening for “quite some time.”

“And then there are times when we have officers out on a call, so what happens when we get another call?” Jones said. “We can call our partners … but they’re often coming from a ways away as well.”

Jones also worries that her department does not have enough supervisors.

“Our supervisory positions have increased over time,” she told Council members during their Monday evening workshop. “But our captain position has a crazy amount of supervision and is not (sustainable).”

There are times, especially during the middle of the night, when Camas police officers — often including the department’s less experienced officers — are working without a direct supervisor available, Jones said, adding “some days we have 14 hours in a day where we don’t have a supervisor.”

The police chief said she does not believe her department is prepared for the number of retirements that could come in the next few years.

“There is a huge lead time (to replace a police officer), with background, hiring, training, getting through the academy … all of that adds up,” Jones said. “These things start tipping and we’re not able to be proactive or problem-solve. We become more reactive than proactive.”

To remedy the department’s staffing challenges, Jones asked Camas Mayor Steve Hogan to include funding for two lieutenants, two patrol sergeants, one administrative supervisor and two police officers in his proposed 2025-26 budget.

“This is what I think we need, in my professional opinion,” Jones said. “I know it’s a tight budget. And I appreciate the mayor’s focus on trying to achieve these positions we need. … We want to provide the best public safety service that we can.”

In order to fund the new police positions, Hogan plans to go straight to the voters. On Monday, the Council approved a plan to put a proposition on the Feb. 11, 2025 ballot that will ask Camas voters to approve a 4% utility tax on the City’s water, sewer, stormwater and solid waste (garbage) utilities and raise $1 million a year to fund the police positions and associated vehicles and equipment.

On Monday, a few of the Council members told Jones they supported her request and would back the plan to ask voters for the additional 4% utility tax.

“I’ve lived in this community a very long time and the community has changed and policing has changed,” Councilwoman Marilyn Boerke told Jones during the Monday evening workshop. “I want to give my support for your request.”

Councilwoman Leslie Lewallen — who voted “no” on all of the mayor’s revenue requests during the Council’s regular meeting Monday night — told Jones that, while she “totally support(s) law enforcement,” she was concerned about the creation of a new utility tax.

“I think public safety is the top concern for our community,” Lewallen said Monday. “My concern … is that, unlike property taxes that are capped statutorily, that the utility tax will go up and up and up. So that is my hesitation with utility tax in general, which is why I voted ‘no” originally (on a 2% utility tax in 2022). I have no problem with the 4% but my hesitation is that the ink won’t even be dry and (city officials) will be asking for 6% and ultimately reach 28.9%, which is what Vancouver has.”

Jones said she understood the concern, but noted that, “as cities grow, we have to find ways to invest in demands for services.”

The Council did eventually vote to approve the mayor’s plan to send the 4% utility tax — which will be used for police needs only — to the voters in February. Lewallen, along with Councilwoman Jennifer Senescu, voted against the proposal and Councilman John Svilarich abstained from the vote.