Portland police are struggling to fill officer vacancies as recruits wash out during probation at about double the rate they have in the past.

The bureau currently has 75 unfilled officer positions.

The bureau hired more officers from mid-2016 to mid-2018, but more of them are flunking out of the state’s basic police academy or failing to make it through Portland’s 18-month probation period, Assistant Chief Chris Davis said.

Twenty to 25 percent of those recruits didn’t make it through probation successfully and are no longer working for the bureau, compared to the more typical 10 to 15 percent drop-out rate, according to city figures.

The failed recruits couldn’t perform on the job, had problems multi-tasking or making good decisions under stress during field training, Davis said. Others decided on their own that the job wasn’t working out for them or were terminated due to misconduct, he said.

Davis reviews all the background investigations of recruits and said it’s hard to predict how somebody will perform in uniform.

“It’s not like I’m evaluating a potential running back for a football team and I can see how fast you run the 40-yard dash,’’ he said.

“Obviously we’re watching this closely,’’ he said. “If this becomes a longer-term trend, we’re going to have to have our psychological screening contractor and training people figure out what the issue is.’’

Officer Daryl Turner, president of the Portland Police Association representing rank-and-file officers, said some of the new recruits "come into the job thinking it’s like it is on television, and it isn’t.'' Just because they passed the written test, an interview, background check and psychological exam, doesn’t mean they’re going to be cut out for police work, he said.

The bureau faces several challenges in trying to hire officers, common to police departments nationwide. First, officers are retiring at a rate faster than Portland can hire replacements, with another wave of 30 to 50 retirements expected this spring. The bureau anticipates roughly 20 retirements by the end of March.

A strong job market, negative attitudes nationally and locally toward policing and a backgrounding process that takes longer than many other police agencies also have hurt Portland, police say.

Katie Shifley, an analyst with the city budget office, said hiring and recruitment remains a major challenge for the Police Bureau.

The city provided funding for 55 new Portland police officer positions for this fiscal year, bringing the sworn officer force to 1,001. But the bureau has only been able to hire 22 new officers.

That’s despite developing recruitment videos, social media advertisements, allowing continuous police hiring throughout the year instead of during only scheduled times and trying to speed up background investigations, Shifley found.

“The slow pace of hiring has budgetary and performance implications; the anticipated reduction in overtime to backfill for minimum staffing levels will likely not come to fruition in the next 18-24 months, nor is the bureau likely to improve emergency response times in the near term if recruitment and hiring are not improved,” she wrote in her analysis.

The pace of hiring has fallen from earlier years when Portland hired 58 officers in fiscal year 2016-2017 and 73 in fiscal year 2017-2018. The bureau projected having up to 440 officers available for patrol by mid-2022, but, based on the current hiring pace, now projects as few as 360 patrol officers will be available.

To try to speed up the background investigations, applicants were allowed to fill out personal history statements online. But the turnaround time from application to hiring still averages nearly a year, or 340 days, causing the bureau to frequently lose people to other agencies with shorter turn-around times.

The bureau this week is interviewing 80 candidates. It recently started using an on-line management system to make the application process more efficient in getting information from applicants shared with background investigators. It also named two new police recruiters. It has scheduled hiring workshops for prospective candidates monthly, with the next one set for March 16, and will have recruiters at a Women’s Public Safety Services Career Fair on April 13 at the bureau’s training center.

Davis met earlier this week with officials from the police personnel division, the bureau’s psychological testing contractor and the city’s Bureau of Human Resources and community members to figure out what more they can do.

“A lot of it has to do with messaging,’’ he said. “How we explain to prospective police applicants who we are and how we get our message out in the midst of the negativity about our profession.’’

The bureau hopes to better tailor that message, Davis said.

It might, he said, sound something like this: “There’s a lot of desire for change in policing. We get that. Why don’t you come and be a part of that change and lead the organization in a better direction? Come here and help us make it better. Be part of something we can be proud of.’’

Chief Danielle Outlaw called recruiting, hiring and retaining new officers a "critical task'' for the bureau.

“We need the entire community to come together in support of public safety and police accountability, which helps us in our endeavors to keep Portland safe. We are seeking recruits who are compassionate, creative problem solvers and strong decision makers. Community members are some of our best recruiters because they know the qualities they want in their police officers.”

The bureau remains reliant on overtime to fill patrol shifts at precincts. The cost of personnel overtime was $3.7 million in fiscal year 2017-18, up from $2.7 million the prior year. This fiscal year, the hours of overtime worked have remained steady but the per hour costs of overtime have gone up due to increases in officer salaries under the union contract.

“We got to get those positions filled,’’ Davis said. “ We can’t go on like this.’’

-- Maxine Bernstein

Email at mbernstein@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @maxoregonian

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