In a Sept. 1 report to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the City Council, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) said it'll publicly reveal key aspects of its plan to rework the deployment of police personnel citywide.
Source: Chicago Police Dept.
But the revelation comes late—and critics say CPD hasn't lived up to its promises of full transparency about the plan.
CPD began the plan to rework staff deployment—called the workforce allocation study—in October of 2024 by hiring a contractor, California-based Matrix Consulting Group.
Matrix then embarked on a yearlong effort to analyze CPD's staffing, and to develop "an interactive model [of optimum staffing] that can be replicated as needed." Matrix will address requirements of the 2019 federal consent decree, such as a 1:10 supervisor to officer ratio. It'll also figure out where there aren't enough people to do policing, and which sworn (badged) positions could better be done by civilians.
In its September report to the mayor and the council, CPD said it would, in the same month, publicly release what it had earlier called "critical deliverables:" an "Organizational Profile" and "Interim Framework Report."
According to CPD, the Organizational Profile "documents CPD’s current staffing levels, organizational structure, service environment, and existing staffing allocation strategies." CPD said the profile resulted from interviews with over 170 department stakeholders, an unspecified data analysis, and review of CPD's policies.
The Interim Framework Report, CPD has said, "will describe the methodology to be used" in a future "analysis phase" of the workforce study. The report will identify the contractor's assumptions about "workload, unit-specific staffing strategies, and performance targets."
The framework will further identify the "analytical methods" the contractor will apply to each CPD position. CPD notes that some of its positions require "ratio-based" analysis—such as having one supervisor (i.e., patrol sergeant) oversee no more than 10 patrol officers. Other positions require what CPD calls "workload-based" or "fixed coverage" analysis.
CPD did not, however, release these deliverables in September.
At an Oct. 14 federal court hearing about CPD's compliance with the 2019 consent decree, CPD executive director of constitutional policing and reform, Allyson Clark Henson, said that CPD will release the Organizational Profile and Interim Framework Report on Oct. 23. And CPD has said the releases will be "accompanied by a public webinar to explain their content and their role in the broader study." (The Zoom-based webinar will take place on Thursday, Oct. 23 from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Find a registration link here, or access the webinar directly via https://us02web.zoom.us/w/87593147956.)
At the Oct. 14 federal court hearing, the state's Office of Attorney General (OAG) slammed CPD's lack of transparency around the workforce allocation study.
At the hearing, an OAG assistant attorney general, Elena Meth, praised CPD's workforce contractor for "good and important progress." But Meth urged the city to "convey the results of [study progress] to the public more frequently and more transparently."
"Before starting the workforce allocation study," Meth said, CPD and its contractor "created a timeline for reporting out to the public on the status of the study. Initially, the community engagement schedule was set out to report in March, May, June or July, September or October, November or December or January when the study was completed.
"However," Meth said, "the only public engagement that has occurred so far was in May"—dealing with community focused policing, not workforce allocation.
"This is concerning to our office and to many community members," Meth said, adding that "the city must increase" transparency.
Commenting at the Oct. 14 hearing after OAG's complaint, police superintendent Larry Snelling said, "[W]e're doing everything that we can there to make sure that we get the best possible information out of" CPD's contractor.
