DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — The Delray Beach police chief is resigning his post after three years as the city's top cop, the city confirmed to WPTV on Wednesday.
Chief Russ Mager has held the position since 2022, when he replaced outgoing Chief Javaro Sims, who retired at the end of August.
WATCH BELOW: Delray Beach police chief previously cited staffing shortages before resignation
Mager has been with the Delray Beach Police Department (DBPD) for 29 years, serving in many leadership roles throughout his career.
"Chief Russ Mager has been a dedicated public servant and an integral part of the Delray Beach Police Department for nearly 30 years. His leadership, integrity, and commitment to our community have left a lasting impact on our city. We are deeply grateful for his service and wish him all the best in this next chapter," Delray Beach City Manager Terrence R. Moore told WPTV in a statement.
WATCH BELOW: 'We need to pay our officers,' Vice Mayor Rob Long says
We're working to learn the reason why he is leaving but Vice Mayor Rob Long believes a clue is in a letter Mager wrote to the Delray Beach city manager last month expressing extreme concern on staffing shortages.
"Someone like Russ Mager, who has dedicated his life and career to law enforcement, wouldn't leave for no reason," Long said. "When Russ Mager came in, he was fixing a staffing issue and he did an amazing job recruiting and filling those positions."
According to the letter, the chief said recent shortages forced him to dismantle the department's community policing unit, with more on the chopping block, to simply keep minimum staffing requirements for road patrol.
Region S Palm Beach County
GRIDLOCK: What's stopping Delray Beach Police from getting paid more money?
"And now here we are, such a short time later, and now we're going to see biggest staff deficit that the police department has ever seen in its history," Long said.
The resignation comes amid deadlock contract negotiations for the city's police department between the city of Delray Beach and the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association.
In the letter the chief also stated concerns that his officers were leaving to go to the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office.
WPTV's Joel Lopez did some digging and learned that PBSO is currently processing or interviewing seven officers from DBPD and that in the last two years, PBSO has hired 11 of Delray's officers.
"You don't see those numbers, not with any other agency," said Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association (PBA) President John Kazanjian. "He can't do his job thoroughly to be a police chief—they don't give him the resources, the people, the staff. Who knows what's going to hold for the future. They're leaving. They're going to better places that have better salaries and better benefits."
Negotiations between the city of Delray Beach and the Palm Beach County Police Benevolent Association on a new contract for the police department are currently at an impasse and have been so since September.
WATCH BELOW: What's stopping Delray Beach Police from getting paid more money?
Commissioner Juli Casale is one of the commissioners that has pushed back on the PBA's request for a higher salary number for the officers and retirement benefits to senior officers.
"We're a very small community, we're different from Boca, we'll never match what the county does, the sheriff's office—we just can't," she said. "But we offer some great incentives in the city and it's an amazing place to work. We don't have the money, so we either have to go out to the taxpayers and ask for an assessment, or we have to figure out a way to negotiate fairly."
We're told Mager has a month left with the department, as the city looks for his replacement. The next step in contract negotiations are at the end of summer.
"I frankly don't know that we can wait that long. We have a lot of people leaving to go to the sheriff's office right now," Long said. "We need to stop the bleeding, which means we need to pay our officers. Period."
Chief Mager also wrote that being forced to temporarily reassign officers from specialty units and warned major cases like homicides, shootings, stabbings, and others may be given to an outside agency due to a lack of resources.
Casale has hope the issue will be ironed out.
"To the residents, this will get resolved and we will be fine," she said. "I have the utmost regard for the police chief and I'm sad to see him leave."
