This is the second day of the quarterly Clayton Performance Reviews (CPRs), where county department leaders presented progress, challenges, and strategic priorities for the third and fourth quarters of fiscal year 2026. Chief Operating Officer Dietrich Stanford opened the meeting, inviting citizen feedback via email. Ten departments reported, including Police, Transportation & Development, Building & Maintenance, Information Technology, Grants Administration, Resilience & Emergency Management, Community & Economic Development, Library Services, Youth Services, and Human Resources.
Good morning to our citizens, our stakeholders and our partners, just for uh indulging us this morning as we are looking at day two of our CPRs, which is the Clayton Performance Reviews. Um, Dietrich Stanford, I serve as the Chief Operating and Officer for the Board of Commissioners. And again, we think it's a privilege and an opportunity for us to engage you into the performances of our respective leaderships in our county departments. Um each quarter, we take it upon ourselves to ensure that you have an opportunity to hear from our leadership about the progress as well as some of the challenges they may be experiencing in their respective departments. Today would not be any different. We'll give you an opportunity to hear from our leadership about the things they are doing from the operational plans, the strategic direction, and more importantly, how are we aligning those respective areas with our Board of Commissioners' strategic opportunities. So, with that, there's a couple things that we want to ensure that you as a citizen without your present or you listening from home. Is that at the end of the day, it's important that you give us feedback about how you see we are progressing within the county. If you have any questions, we ask that you go to CPR questions at Clayton County GA.gov. Again, that's CPR questions at Clayton County GAGA.gov. Dev gave you an opportunity to interface with the leadership and give us feedback about things that we can continue to approve upon within the county. So, with that, we'll go forth and we'll start with our presentations. Good morning. I'm Major Frank Thomas of the Clayton County Police Department. I'll be presenting the Clayton Performance Review for the third and fourth quarters of 2026 on behalf of Chief of Police, Chief Kevin Roberts. This briefing highlights our progress, our challenges, and our strategic priorities moving forward. The metrics you will see today reflect not just numbers, but meaningful outcomes for our residents, our officers, and the overall quality of life in Clayton County. Our mission remains consistent to serve and protect all citizens with excellence. Every initiative we undertake is rooted in professionalism, collaboration, and community trust. Our core values of commitment, honor, integrity, professionalism, and transparency guide every decision our officers make. We currently operate with 532 allocated personnel, including 393 sworn officers, 62 communication staff, and 76 non-sworn employees. This team forms the foundation of our ability to deliver high quality public safety services. The police department is broken down into two branches, field operations and support operations. Field operations is our more forward public-facing command, which involves our uniformed officers and our detectives. The support operations command is comprised of personnel that supports the organization's entire mission. Support Operations Command has our E 91 Communications Division, our logistics and operations division, which handles our supplies and resources. Support Services Division, which is our animal control unit, community affairs, protective services, and our chaplains. And then our administrative division, background and recruiting, our training, and our Titan unit, targeted investigations through analysis of networks, and also our real-time crime center, also known as RTCC. Our goals are aligned with the county's established strategic pillars. These include communication and image, economic opportunity, professional growth management, fiscal responsibility, and quality of life. To support these pillars, the department focuses on four key goals reducing and preventing crime, expanding community engagements, supporting professional growth for our employees, and enhancing overall quality of life for our residents. Each goal connects directly to measurable outcomes you'll see throughout this presentation. One of our primary objectives under communication and image is increasing community engagement. This year we set a modest target of 3% growth in social media and community interactions. We far exceeded that goal, reaching 172.8% increase in total engagements compared to our fiscal year 2025. This growth was driven by major increases in social media posts, neighborhood events, HOA meetings, and special details. These results reflect stronger relationships, improve transparency, and greater community involvement in public safety. Reducing stolen vehicles is a major focus area because it affects both economic opportunity and quality of life. In fiscal year 26, we saw a 10 percent increase in recovered stolen vehicles, and more significantly, a 31.5 percent reduction in stolen vehicles overall. While quarter three showed a slight decrease in recoveries, the overall annual trend is strong, especially with the substantial rebound in quarter four. These results demonstrate effective use of technology through our real-time crime center, strong investigative follow-through, and proactive policing strategies that directly benefit residents and businesses alike. Under the fiscal responsibility pillar, maintaining a stable workforce is essential. Our vacancy rate continues to decline, showing success in recruitment and retention. We've moved from an average of 20.5% in fiscal year 23 to 11.4 in fiscal year 25 and now at 10.5% in fiscal year 26. Remaining below the 15% target means improved coverage, fewer overtime pressures, and better staffing across our multiple units. This stability strengthens community service and operational readiness. Professional development is vital for building leadership, improving service delivery, and preparing officers for career progression. This year's foreign personnel completed 165 higher level certifications, which was a 44.7% increase over the last fiscal year. We saw major growth in intermediate and advanced certifications and continued movement in our supervision and management tracks. These achievements show a strong commitment to professional excellence and signal that our workforce is becoming more skilled, better prepared, and capable of handling complex policing challenges.