CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Albemarle County Police needs more officers on patrol and to redraw staffing district maps to better address the growing number of calls it’s asked to respond to, according to a third-party study that will be presented to the county’s Board of Supervisors on Wednesday.

Emergency Services Consulting International studied data from 2020-2025 for both ACPD and the county’s Fire Rescue department.

The police report also recommended examining the department’s call for service model, increased nighttime shift supervision and funding an over hiring process to fill vacancies more quickly.

“Staffing shortages and increasing call volume have significantly affected ACPD’s ability to manage routine calls for service and prepare for major incidents,” the report said.

One solution the study recommends? Reassigning officers currently working with specialty units back to patrol shifts. Specialty units include such teams as crash reconstruction, crisis negotiation, K-9 units and drone squads.

“Specialty units play a vital role in fulfilling the department’s broader public safety mission,” the report said. “However, patrol must be stabilized first to ensure foundational service delivery.”

A key challenge, the study found, is that ACPD resources are used to respond to “calls in ‘hotspot’ areas like Crozet and the outskirts of Charlottesville,” which leads to longer response times and decreased patrol presence in the more rural areas.

According to the ACPD’s own midyear crime report, officers responded to Priority 1 calls, the category that includes violent crimes and motor vehicle crashes with injuries, in an average time of 4:33, under the goal of five minutes.

It hit or bettered its goal on 73% of the 341 calls it responded to in that period.

But in the rural areas, where it aims to respond in under 10 minutes, it averaged 11:02, hitting or beating its goal on just 54% of the 102 calls it took.

“Rural zones across the county are often underserved because officers are routinely redirected to high-demand areas such as Crozet and Charlottesville’s urban fringe,” the third-party ESCI study said. “This imbalance not only strains personnel but erodes community trust in under-patrolled regions and undermines ACPD’s ability to deliver equitable service

The study noted recent support from the Board of Supervisors in both areas, noting the county had added 116 positions in fire/rescue and police, including 19 with ACPD. The ACPD additions included nine patrol officers, six special unit members and three members of the county’s mental health team.

It also pointed out that 3.2 of the 4-cent real estate tax increase in fiscal year 2026 is going to fund public safety, a boost of $9.9 million.

The county added 97 positions with fire rescue, including 87 frontline firefighters and EMTs. (FEMA SAFER grants funded 57 of those new positions.)

Still, the ESCI study of fire rescue services found, “ACFR’s growth has not kept pace with demand. Call volume has steadily increased, with EMS transports representing the largest share of workload.”

The report also found that ACFR relies heavily on volunteers and that the number of volunteers is continually declining, and that having a single battalion chief overseeing a shift is inadequate.

It found ACFR needs to improve its alarm handling time.

“Between 2020 and 2024, ACFR’s alarm handling times at the 90th percentile ranged from 2:36 to 4:39, depending on incident type,” the report said. “These figures fall significantly short of the NFPA 1225 benchmark and represent one of the largest controllable delays in the total response continuum.”

The report noted that dispatch calls are handled by the Charlottesville-UVA-Albemarle Emergency Communications Center, a hub that serves multiple jurisdictions.

Wednesday’s presentation to the Board of Supervisors is open to the public, either in person at Lane Auditorium in the Albemarle County Office Building, or via a live web stream at the county website.