In an effort to combat record-low staffing levels, the Coronado Police Department has implemented a more competitive labor contract and new hiring incentives – a move that has already brought three new officers to the department.
But the city’s law enforcement agency remains significantly short-handed, a problem that puts increased strain on officers.
Earlier this year, the city revealed that about a quarter of its positions for sworn officers and staff were unfilled.
Recruitment officer Lt. Angel Cedeño said the new contract, which went into effect last September, puts Coronado Police Department (CPD) in the top five or six agencies in San Diego County for compensation. He said low staffing in the past year was most likely a “fluke,” with several officers retiring and more medical retirees than in previous years.
Cedeño, in charge of the hiring process for the last five years, said the Police Department still has 13 officer positions unfilled.
Meanwhile, the Coronado Police Officers Association (CPOA) president, Sgt. Darren Hamilton, said the staffing problem is more than just a fluke. He claimed the department and city slacked on recruitment for the past few years.
Hamilton also said that the fifth or sixth spot in the county is actually the median, as there are nine police departments in San Diego County.
The amount of overtime … has pushed our little department almost to that tipping point where we’re battling exhaustion or battling the demands that our city has for us that we want to fill.
Coronado Police Officers Association president Sgt. Darren Hamilton
“People need to know that there are things that the city itself could be doing more to help out the Police Department,” Hamilton told The Coronado News. “The amount of overtime … has pushed our little department almost to that tipping point where we’re battling exhaustion or battling the demands that our city has for us that we want to fill.”
The city’s negotiations with the police department last year have increased pay and other benefits, and combined with the police department’s efforts in campaigning for themselves in their marketing, the agency is bringing in more officers – but they are still battling longstanding issues like less action and fewer specialty units such as a SWAT team, according to Cedeño.
Under the new contracts, first responders saw raises of 6% this past fiscal year – and total base pay increases of more than 17% over the three years of the contract.
To better attract recruits, the agency completely redesigned its website – improving navigation, adding fresh marketing photos and highlighting a $20,000 hiring incentive.
Although there is a new pay agreement, Hamilton said it won’t even be in the top percentage of contracts throughout the county by year’s end because other police agencies also are enhancing their labor packages.
The city did not respond on deadline to inquiries about its labor package.
Across the nation
The staffing crisis facing CPD doesn’t seem to be an isolated local issue; rather, it mirrors struggles with the recruitment and retention of officers across the nation.
According to data from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), California’s statewide officer headcount dropped by 3% following the pandemic, dipping from roughly 79,600 sworn officers in 2019 down to 77,200 in 2024.
The PPIC report highlighted that retention, including voluntary resignations and retirements, went down by more than 30% between 2020 and 2022.
The National Policing Institute noted that modern law enforcement agencies are under unprecedented operational pressure to “do more with less,” leaving existing personnel spread thin to handle shifting community workloads.
According to the National Policing Institute, departments are frequently caught scrambling to cover shifts with heavy overtime or trying to out-bid one another with massive financial hiring bonuses.
What happened
In May, the city revealed that the Police Department was shorthanded by about a dozen sworn officers. Cedeño said it was the most in the two decades that he has served on the force. Currently, CPD has 34 officers.
Cedeño said the department was actually overstaffed just two years prior in 2024. A fully staffed department would be 47 officers, with the city allowing overhiring by two.
However, Hamilton said, many of those officers were out on medical leave, leaving colleagues to cover empty shifts. Due to labor laws, he added, CPD couldn’t hire replacement officers.
Hamilton said most of the officers who were out on leave ended up retiring or transferring, and the department has been unable to recruit replacements. He asserted that Coronado PD is “one critical incident away” from being completely overwhelmed.
While a bad year of injuries and retirements may be partially to blame for Coronado’s immediate vacancy spike, the numbers reveal unique, long-standing recruitment hurdles.
Because the agency strictly limits its hiring pool to pre-trained or active officers, and lacks the high-speed action or specialized units found in larger cities, it is relying on the new financial package to convince officers to come over.
The city does not have a tactical operations unit because it relies on a mutual-aid agreement among San Diego County law enforcement agencies.
“We had probably six, seven, maybe even eight people that were unable to be on the field, and they were injured … which is massive,” Cedeño said. “That is very abnormal.”
Normally, the department would have one or two officers out on medical leave in the span of six months to a year, said Cedeño. Four of those injured personnel ended up medically retiring. They also had a couple of terminations and probation releases in addition to a high volume of regular retirees, the hiring officer said.
Low applications
To promote recruitment, the Police Department rolled out a new hiring campaign at the beginning of the year, marketing its new pay and benefits.
Since the new labor contract went into effect, Cedeno said, the department has seen applications almost double, and the city has brought on three new officers.
Historically, Cedeño attributes the lower application volume to the island’s low rate of high-intensity law enforcement activity, which may make the agency less appealing to recruits wanting fast-paced fieldwork.
“For the younger people, that’s very, very common. They know already that we don’t have that type of activity that frequent … (Our officers) do unfortunately get in fights, but it’s not as often.”
Cedeño attributes lower application volume to another major factor: the Coronado Police Department only hires candidates who are already sworn officers or on the verge of graduating from the police academy.
We can’t hire you and put you through the academy.
Coronado Police Department hiring officer Lt. Angel Cedeño
“We can’t hire you and put you through the academy,” Cedeño said.
He said the San Diego Police Department and some other agencies will hire applicants if they meet requirements and pass a background check, and then pay for their way through a police academy.
Cedeño explained that the hiring process is arduous and resource-intensive, requiring significant effort to filter candidates out before they even reach the academy.
For other cities, he said, a department will invest heavily in a recruit who will spend six months away training – with no guarantee they will actually graduate after all that time and money.
Cedeño also said that there was a dip in police applications throughout the nation during the pandemic, with the politicization of law enforcement. But in Coronado, that doesn’t seem to really be a factor.
You’re definitely going to get community support, the community is very pro-law enforcement, pro-military.
Coronado Police Department hiring officer Lt. Angel Cedeño
“You’re definitely going to get community support, the community is very pro-law enforcement, pro-military,” he said.
