The St. Paul Police Department plans to keep 16 vacant jobs unfilled next year, with nearly half of them community engagement cadets, under the mayor’s proposed budget, the police chief told the St. Paul City Council on Wednesday.
No current officers or other police department employees would lose their jobs.
Mayor Melvin Carter presented his 2026 budget proposal on Sept. 4. The city council is now receiving weekly informational presentations from the city’s departments before it finalizes the budget in December.
Carter’s $887 million proposed budget for the coming year would rely on a 5.3% property tax levy increase, roughly comparable to this year’s 5.9% increase and about average for the decade.
The 2026 budget would expand investment in housing programs, such as office-to-housing conversions and down-payment assistance, without laying off city employees. To accomplish those goals, Carter’s proposal would trim hours at some recreation centers and freeze hiring for dozens of open city positions.
The police department’s proposed budget for next year is $146 million, which is about $3 million more than this year’s budget. Just over 92 percent of the budget is salaries and wages, and next year’s budget increase reflects already-negotiated salary increases in the contract with officers, Police Chief Axel Henry said.
Homicides, shootings are down
St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry speaks to City Council members. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)
The department’s priorities are reducing gun violence and violent crime as a whole. “A lot of good news on that front,” Henry told the council Wednesday. “Every major felony crime category in the city is dropping, and it is dropping in consecutive years.”
There have been eight homicides in St. Paul this year, compared to 19 in the city at this time last year. Forty-nine people have been injured in nonfatal shootings, according to preliminary information; there were 77 as of this date last year.
The reduction in violent crime means the department has not needed to call in investigators and crime-scene analysts as much on an overtime basis.
Police overtime spending from the general fund was down 30 percent for the first half of this year compared with the same period last year.
In downtown, the Dale/University area and other places — where some people are dealing and using drugs in public, contending with mental illness and involved in quality-of-life crimes — the police department has shifted officers’ hours and focus, Henry said.
“Obviously, the goal would be that we do something in prevention. No one wants to arrest our way out of the opioid crisis,” Henry said. “But we also know in the short term, one of the ways that we can compel people to seek … treatment … is to arrest them for the lower-level crimes that they’re committing, and then say, ‘Hey, you have a choice. You can face the consequences of that crime. Alternative number two, which is you go to drug court, and you basically go seek treatment.’”
Funding officers
Carter, in previously deciding how to use one-time federal funding for public safety, asked Henry if starting a nonfatal shooting unit could reduce such shootings and also push down homicides.
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“I said, ‘Absolutely,’” Henry recounted Wednesday.
Nonfatal shootings were previously handled by homicide investigators. Designating investigators to solely solve nonfatal shootings led from a clearance rate of 38 percent at the end of 2023 to 71 percent for 2024 cases, according to the department.
The federal funding will run out at the end of 2026, “but they have been so effective” Henry told the council he would not “get rid of or disband that group.”
Meanwhile, due to a grant that’s expiring, 11 other officers who’d been grant-funded will need to be funded by the department next year.
Down to 8 parking enforcement officers
St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry, top left, speaks to city council members during a meeting regarding the mayor’s 2026 budget proposal for the police department. (Claudia Staut / Pioneer Press)
Keeping 16 vacant positions open will save about $1.4 million next year, according to the department.
There are currently 17 community engagement cadets working for the police department. They’re young people who are in college, “on a pathway program to become police officers,” according to Henry.
The seven vacant cadet positions that will remain open next year is “not saying that I don’t value that position,” but comes down to making difficult budget decisions, Henry said.
Parking enforcement officers, who are in college for law enforcement and are a pipeline to becoming a St. Paul police officer, are a “way to illustrate some of the issues with our budget,” Henry said.
There is enough work for about 24 parking officers during two shifts, but the budget doesn’t allow for that many, Henry said. The police department had 12 at one point and, in the last year, the number was reduced to 10. Next year, there will be eight.
“We would like to see those (numbers) obviously stay up,” Henry said, but it’s understandable that they have to reduce them “when we’re doing budget crunches.”
Council Member Anika Bowie, whose ward includes Allianz Field, said she hears from people who live in the neighborhood and are frustrated about cars parked for a long time or in handicap parking spots.
“If we’re going to be a city that’s going to have more events, more concerts, more festivals … all those things that helps generate our economy … we want to make sure that the residents here aren’t compromised with having adequate parking,” she said.
‘Retirement boom’
The department is authorized to hire up to 619 officers, which will drop to 616 in next year’s proposed budget. But the department hasn’t had close to that number for some time because hiring hasn’t kept up with people leaving. There were 562 officers on the department’s payroll as of Sept. 8.
The police department brings on new officers through one or two training academies each year, and this year a third is starting in October. There is not funding earmarked in next year’s budget for two academies.
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“Having academies is critical to hiring those officers and then getting out of our shortage, which saves us on overtime, so we want to be investing there,” city council President Rebecca Noecker said, asking Henry if the department will be able to hold two academies next year.
“We will find a way,” he said. “… We have people in the pipeline, and we are recruiting.”
Furthermore, law enforcement is “in the middle of a retirement boom” as people reach retirement age, Henry said. At the same time, fewer people have been applying to become officers.
Over the next three years, there will be 90 to 100 St. Paul officers who will turn 55 or older and could retire.
“Keep in mind, I’m 56 so people don’t automatically leave at 55, but for most folks, that’s typically when you get there, especially if you’re hired in your early 20s,” Henry said.
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