A popular and long-running community engagement program is returning to the Salem Police Department next spring after city budget cuts canceled the 2025 event.

The Community Police Academy will be available again in April 2026, department spokeswoman Angela Hedrick said.

The department announced this year’s cancellation in a Facebook post March 10, prompting disappointment and frustration from some Salem residents.

“How unfortunate. This was such good education for the community,” one commenter said.

The academy, which is run by volunteers and police, offered the public weeks of classes on police procedures and programs, including traffic investigations and recruitment.

When the event was canceled for 2025, it was unclear whether it would be available moving forward due to increasing service costs.

In late February, city leaders requested the Salem Police Department to reduce costs through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. The department looked to its nonessential overtime work, which includes community engagement initiatives, Hedrick told Salem Reporter in March.

Canceling the academy would save the department about $20,000, which paid the officers who ran the academy alongside community volunteers, Hedrick previously said.

Time for officers to attend Salem neighborhood association meetings was also cut in March. Whether that participation will come back is undecided, Hedrick said.

With the city facing a large budget deficit, voters passed a property tax levy in May which is estimated to raise $14 million in its first year and $76 million over its five-year term.

That money is earmarked for the city library, parks, recreation and Center 50+. But its passage freed up general city funds to be used for other purposes like public safety.

The deficit and budget cuts caused uncertainty across city departments, from the police’s community academy to summer youth programs and events. Since the levy passed, the city’s budget committee recently passed a new budget for the next fiscal year, which the Salem City Council will adopt in June.

Interim City Manager Krishna Namburi said the city would reverse many of the temporary cost-saving measures implemented in February, including overtime cuts and equipment replacement.

The academy has been around since the mid-1990s. It teaches a small group of 25 community members about the traffic team, canine unit and crime scene investigation.

“I know that people who participate see the value in it just as much as we do, that they’ve learned a lot, that they appreciated the opportunity to to better understand what it takes to investigate a crime scene, or investigate a traffic scene,” Hedrick said in March. 

Before the city’s request to cut costs, the department reduced the academy from a 14-week program to eight weeks and made it once a year rather than twice, according to Hedrick. That decision was made last October. The last academy was held in September.

Contact reporter Madeleine Moore: [email protected].

A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE– If you found this story useful, consider subscribing to Salem Reporter if you don’t already. Work such as this, done by local professionals, depends on community support from subscribers. Please take a moment and sign up now – easy and secure: SUBSCRIBE.