Last week, Troy Price was sworn in as the new chief of police in Vancouver. A 27-year veteran of the department, he takes the helm a month after Vancouver voters rejected a proposition that would have helped fill staffing shortages. Proposition 4 would have raised property taxes starting next year to pay for hiring 80 fulltime sworn officers and other police positions, along with funding for new equipment, technologies and investments in other areas.  

As the city’s population has risen in the past decade, so too has the demand for police services. According to city officials, more than 3,000 cases go uninvestigated each year as the call volume for police response has grown by more than a third since 2017. The Vancouver Police Department also has the second-lowest staffing levels of any city in Washington with at least 100,000 residents. Chief Price joins us to talk about his priorities and how he aims to fill police officer vacancies as the city faces a budget shortfall of more than $40 million.