CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – After hearing the myriad data by County COO Kristy Shifflett in the Strategic-Plan-Execution Analysis-Report (SPEAR), supervisors took particular note in Priority 1 police response times in rural areas under the Safety and Well Being data and its achievability. Among the Fiscal Year 2025 targets was “at least 100% of police Priority 1 calls in rural areas should be responded to within 10 minutes”.
“My only comment is I was really surprised to see the 10-minute rural area PD goal, because I don’t see how it’s possible with geography,” said White Hall Supervisor Ann Mallek.
Shifflett noted in the 2026 budget processes, the board increased taxes toward reducing police and fire response times especially in rural areas. They hired six additional police officers in addition to taking on the benefits and pay of five personnel hired the past couple of years using a federal grant.
“While you approved those additional resources, and they have been allocated, the benefits are going to take a little bit of time to fully realize as these staff have to be recruited and trained,” Shifflet said.
“We are constantly staying on top of this and that’s why these things are being called out as ‘needs attention’, not because we’re surprised, but because we’re not giving up on improving these.”
Response times for the ACPD vary drastically from urban areas to more rural parts of the county, an issue county officials said they are studying. Shifflett said a consultant was acquired in February to do a Public Safety Staffing Study.
According to the department’s midyear crime report, officers are exceeding their goal of responding to calls in urban areas, but struggling with response time for calls in rural areas.
“The study assesses existing staffing levels and allocations, operational and administrative staff between them, interdepartmental relationships and integration, and response delivery capacity in order to develop an implementation plan for appropriate deployment of public safety resources to drive improved visibility and response thresholds,” Shifflett told supervisors.
The “vendor” will be delivering the report in the upcoming fall.
Rio Supervisor Ned Galloway said he’d save most of his discussion for that fall report. However, he expects at this point they’ll find the ‘needs attention’ aspect will be less about how the police and fire chiefs have deployed their personnel and how that personnel is working, and more about resource allocation from the board. And he said this is a good thing.
“When I look at a report and start looking at a ‘needs attention’ type of stuff, it says ‘we can’t be a strong organization unless we recognize it, admit it’… you’ve said it in different words today. So, I’m just celebrating that in someways more so than the ones we have achieved in what are targeted metrics are,” Galloway said.
Scottsville Supervisor Mike Pruitt agreed with Mallek’s assessment about the 10-minute police response time being achievable.
“I can think of places in Supervisor Mallek’s district, places in Supervisor Andrews’ district, and places in my own district where you can have a whole crew sitting in a fire engine idling at every station that you cannot reach in 10 minutes,” Pruitt said.
Only one of the four response time metrics in Safety and Well Being have been accomplished, a 90% response goal to fire rescue calls in rural districts in 21 minutes is at 95%. However, in addition to falling short of the 10-minute police response time to Priority 1 calls in rural areas, a 90% target for response for fire rescue calls in development areas within 8 minutes is 72%, and a 100% target for police response times for Priority 1 calls within urban areas within five minutes is 74%.
Click here for the Board of Supervisors’ presentation and discussion of SPEAR.
Click here for a CvilleRightNow.com report on the complete SPEAR numbers.
