We’re getting closer to a fully staffed SFPD and Sheriff’s Department.

After years of shortages and overworked officers, San Francisco’s police and sheriff’s departments are finally seeing real progress in rebuilding their ranks — and it’s not by accident. Thanks to continued investment from City Hall and some creative new tactics, both agencies are charting a course back to full strength. It’s proof that when the city takes its duty to public safety seriously, results follow.

Back in May, Mayor Daniel Lurie launched the Rebuilding the Ranks initiative, a 100-day and six-month action plan to fix the chronic staffing shortages that have strained San Francisco’s law enforcement agencies for years. The effort is already paying off. According to the SFPD’s own data, applications are surging:

• 3,375 entry-level applications have come in so far this year — a 40% increase over 2024.
• 195 lateral applicants (officers from other departments) have applied — a 364% jump from last year.
• The time-to-hire has been cut in half, and academy graduation rates are up 20%, with no compromise to training standards.

That kind of progress doesn’t happen by chance. The Mayor’s plan introduced new programs that keep experienced officers in the field longer and make it easier for new recruits to get through the door. Among the early actions:

• Launching a Reserve Officer Program for recently retired SFPD members to return to patrol or investigative work.
• Reviewing and, where appropriate, proposing reforms to academy operations to improve graduation rates without compromising standards.
• Streamlining the hiring process with the Department of Human Resources to eliminate unnecessary bottlenecks.

Within six months, the plan also calls for evaluating how overtime, sick leave, and “10B” off-duty assignments affect availability — and for shifting administrative work off sworn officers so more can be deployed to patrol and investigations. The message is clear: San Francisco is finally managing its public safety staffing like it means it.

Still, the city isn’t at full strength yet. The SFPD currently has about 1,500 sworn officers, well short of the recommended 2,000-plus. Overtime remains a stopgap. But after years of decline, the momentum is finally moving in the right direction — and that matters for every neighborhood in the city.

The same playbook is starting to work for the Sheriff’s Department, too. After years of losing more deputies than it hired, the department saw its first net gain in six years during the 2024-25 fiscal year — 96 new deputies hired versus 49 departures, adding 47 deputies to the roster. It’s a sign that coordinated recruitment strategies and leadership alignment can turn even the toughest staffing trends around.

That said, the Sheriff’s Department still has a long way to go: with only about 705 deputies on the books out of 920 budgeted positions, it remains roughly 215 short of full staffing. If the City can bring the same urgency to filling those ranks as it has to the SFPD, we’ll finally be able to say San Francisco’s frontline public safety agencies are built for the city’s needs — not constantly playing catch-up.

For now, credit where it’s due: the early success of Rebuilding the Ranks shows that progress happens when leadership sets clear goals and invests in the people doing the work. The next step is obvious — finish the job by fully staffing both the Police and Sheriff’s Departments so San Francisco can continue its comeback in full force, and do everything we can to ensure that attrition and other workforce shocks don’t set us back again in the future.