BEND, OR -- A backlog at the police academy in Salem is causing problems for law enforcement agencies all over the state. Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz tells KBND News getting a new recruit into the academy now takes months, "Now we have six or seven months where we have to find other work for them and get them some of the internal training we may provide, that previously they used to just go right to the academy within a month or so."

Oregon's Police Academy is run by the Department of Public Safety Standards and Training (DPSST). Acting Executive Director Brian Henson says the goal is to get recruits in within 90 days of hire. Right now, that timeline is closer to seven months, "We’re coming out of the COVID years when agencies weren’t hiring. We’re coming out of a time when we had a lot of police reform and, for a while, becoming a police officer was seen as a profession people wanted to go into," he tells KBND News, "That’s changed. Right now, we have a very large demand for the classes we offer and we have a limited supply." He says, "It's a perfect storm where that demand bubble has just far exceeded the capacity of the agency. In time, it will go back; it will level out back to that 90-day timeframe. But, for right now, it’s a big concern for all."

Henson says capacity is limited because of financial and staffing limitations, and classroom space. DPSST gets funding for 16 classes in each two-year budget, "In each basic police class, there are 40 students. And there are four basic police classes going on at any given time in the agency, all starting about a month apart from one another." That must accommodate new hires from all of Oregon's 208 law enforcement agencies. 

The legislature approved funding for two more classes but Henson says it still wasn’t enough, "This is the first time in the 20 years that I’ve been at the agency that that adjusting of the class schedule has not taken care of the big concern." Currently, he says the next available academy openings are in May. Henson plans to ask the Legislature in December to fund another two classes in 2023.