Auburn Police Chief Mark Caillier said the police department is suffering a staffing shortage.

This is not only Auburn’s problem, however — it’s also the plague of police agencies across the state and the nation, all of them apparently struggling to find people who want to go into law enforcement, he said.

Since 2020 and the killing of George Floyd under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, and with the increased restrictions on police that followed, in addition to COVID, Auburn is down seven officers from its allotted 118 officers.

“It is not the attraction (one commander) said it was when he applied to be an officer in Auburn,” Mayor Nancy Backus said. “There were 250 applicants. Oh, what I wouldn’t do to have 250 applicants! That would be amazing, but that’s just not the case anymore.”

“We’re trying to bounce back,” Backus added.

The APD got a significant bounce this week.

On Nov. 4, the City of Auburn and the APD accepted a $1.2 million federal grant award from the Department of Justice Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS) to hire 10 more commissioned police officers.

The APD applied for the grant money earlier this year.

The sole aim of the COPS grant is to provide funding to law enforcement agencies for hiring or rehiring additional career law enforcement officers to increase their community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts.

The council authorized Backus to implement the administrative procedures as may be necessary to carry out the directions of the resolution, which takes effect and will be in full force when it is signed.