Arlington’s police chief is seeking to free up funding for about half of all officer positions that are currently frozen, capitalizing on a surge in job applications.
Chief Andy Penn argues that more funding could help the Arlington County Police Department get closer to full staffing and significantly cut overtime costs. He is asking the County Board to consider unfreezing 20 full-time sworn officer positions in the coming fiscal year.
“We have to hire as soon as we’re ready, because if we don’t, somebody will,” Penn told Board members during a March 19 budget work session.
If the Board funded the request, the department could take advantage of a spike in new applications spurred by a major increase in starting pay set to take effect on July 1.
County officials last November announced a new, region-high starting salary of $90,012, plus hiring bonuses of up to $25,000, to start the new fiscal year. “We saw 40% increases in applications” after the announcement, Penn said.
“The current and future hiring of new members looks very bright,” he said.
County Manager Mark Schwartz did not include funding to unfreeze the positions in his proposed $1.69 billion fiscal 2027 budget, released in February. At the March 19 forum, he said it was something Board members should consider, given they had advertised a 2-cent tax-rate increase, higher than the 1.5 cents the manager had proposed.
The cost to unfreeze the 20 positions would be about $1.1 million for fiscal year 2027, but would increase significantly in coming years as those 20 positions are permanently filled. That prospect gave County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti pause.
De Ferranti said his mantra during the current budget season is “let’s not spend on future stuff when we’re in the most difficult economic moment of our time” and when “next year may be worse.”
As the conversation wore on, de Ferranti hedged his bets, saying he’d be open to freeing up funding for additional positions in certain circumstances.
“I don’t want to miss the moment,” he said later in the discussion.
The department saw 47 officer departures in 2025, the highest number in three years. Among them were 19 retirements and 28 resignations.
With just 38 staff hires during the year, the department lost ground in overall strength.
In discussing current conditions, Penn focused primarily on “functional” officers — those who have graduated from the public-safety academy and received local and field training, allowing them to perform duties without supervision.
“If we were fully staffed, our number would be around 345 functional officers,” Penn said. The current figure is 276, he said, up from 260 three months ago but on par with 275 at the end of 2024.
It takes between 10 months and a full year to bring a newly hired officer to functional status. The substantial increase in starting pay was designed to make Arlington stand out from the crowd in a challenging environment for recruitment and retention.
“Staffing challenges are not unique to the Arlington Police Department,” Penn said. “It’s affecting law-enforcement agencies across the country. All of us are actively competing with one another to hire and keep the most qualified candidates.”
Weak staffing levels have led to increases in overtime. In calendar year 2025, the department paid out nearly 126,000 hours in overtime.
“It’s not really surprising,” Penn said. “The people went down. The caseload didn’t.”
However, efforts to limit those costs have seen some success, the chief said.
“We’ve implemented several strategies to try and reduce our overtime,” he said. “We’ve seen about 20-21% reductions.”
Schwartz’s budget proposal seeks $99.3 million in total police funding, up 6% from the current fiscal year. Department funding would represent about 6% of total General Fund expenditures for the year.
