The Honolulu Police Department is 15% below its full staffing level and has sped up the application process to reduce officer vacancies.

HPD has been suffering from a shortage of officers for years, and as of Feb. 8 employed 1,819 officers — or 324 fewer than the 2,143 officers it is authorized to have.

In a presentation to the Honolulu Police Commission on Wednesday, HPD officials went over Police Chief Susan Ballard’s five-year plan, which consists of a handful of priorities, including retaining and recruiting “quality” officers.

One way HPD has been getting recruits in the door is by cutting down the application processing time — from 14 months in 2017 to just under five months in 2020.

The department also held an additional recruiting class last year. Normally, three recruiting classes commence every year, but HPD held four in 2020 for the first time. And those classes were much larger than average classes — a jump to just under 48 recruits from about 30 to 35 recruits.

While HPD welcomed more potential officers, HPD Deputy Chief Aaron Takasaki-Young told the commission that the quality of those applicants has been problematic.

“Once we get into the background of the individual, that’s when we find out a whole bunch of issues or things that prohibit them from moving forward,” he said. “We don’t have issues of people applying. … It’s finding the niche of qualified people who possess integrity, professionalism, maturity and aspects that we feel would make them suitable in that time of their life to accept the responsibility of being a police officer.”

Another issue is that some recruits quit almost immediately after being hired and starting the six-month academy. Takasaki-­Young said one of HPD’s newer goals is to set up an apprenticeship program to give prospective recruits a “simulation” of the physical training and studying they would be doing.

“It’s a way to retain the recruits that we hired, because what we’ve been noticing is that … a lot of the recruits, maybe within the first week or first month … they realize that this may not be the job for them,” Takasaki-Young said.

Commissioner Carrie Okinaga, who was reappointed to the commission last month by the Honolulu City Council, wants Ballard to discuss progress regarding officer shortfalls. She acknowledged it as a recurring issue but isn’t sure if progress is being made.

“I don’t have a sense that it’s actually improving or getting worse,” she said, asking Ballard for “some kind of way for discussing vacancy rates, because that’s something that keeps coming up. I was asked about it in City Council when I was going through confirmation.”

Okinaga wondered how much overtime work was being used to cover up for HPD’s staff shortages and suggested that officers’ salaries could be driving down retention rates.

Ballard didn’t directly respond to Okinaga’s request for more information on vacancies, but she said she herself receives data regularly and that salaries are determined by the police union, not HPD.

Overtime has been used in the past to address the manpower issues in HPD.