The Daily Progress published a story on Monday headlined “Morale on decline within Albemarle County Police Department,” in which the local paper made a survey conducted in May/June 2025 into a present-tense thing, judging from the subhead – “Morale is slipping, in some cases by double-digit percentages, within the Albemarle County police force, an internal department survey found.”
“Is.” Present tense.
The survey is a year old.
I’m quibbling, but words have meaning.
Fun little note for me to share here: the story about this year-old survey being made into something that is still fresh was first pitched to me back on June 4 by a Fluvanna County community activist with what we could call close ties to the ACPD detective who, it just so happened, helped initiate the effort that led to the firing of Charlottesville’s first Black woman police chief.
The June 4 date means something timeline-wise because, hours before Nikki Sheridan, the aforementioned community activist, reached out to me by email, I had published a story on AFP raising issue with another story in the Progress reporting that Sean Reeves, coincidentally, the first Latino police chief in Albemarle County, was on an extended medical leave.
ICYMI
The Progress story on Reeves, published on June 3, seemed to be written to imply that there was something nefarious to Reeves being on medical leave; I wrote to suggest, hey, he’s the police chief, but he’s also a person going through a medical issue, how about some humanity here?
Sheridan’s first email to me on June 4 got straight to the point – with nothing in the way of introduction, the email appeared to be a copy-and-paste from an internal ACPD document, with a summary that followed.
Sheridan told me in a follow-up that the first email was based on an internal document was from a FOIA request made by the Central Virginia Police Benevolent Association, a local police union.
She followed up with an email that included attachments that looked to be authentic, with the titles:
- Police (Civilian) 2025 Employee Engagement Scorecard
- Police (Sworn) 2025 Employee Engagement Scorecard
The timing of Sheridan’s initiation of communication – hours after I’d posted a story telling another local media outlet to leave a police chief with whom I’ve butted heads on several issues alone as he convalesced – already had my radar up.
An anonymous email sent to me on June 11 was a red warning light.
“This email is to inform you that there are some underhanded things going on at the Albemarle County Police Department,” the June 11 email began. “The PBA is targeting the chief and deputy chief of police because they disciplined Det. Mike Wells – who leads the PBA – for using his work vehicle to buy booze in Richmond on his time off. This is a taxpayer-funded vehicle!”
I’m also suspicious of people who write me anonymously, of course – in this case, it would seem to be pretty clear that this second source is either an ACPD employee or close friend or family member of one, to have this information about the disciplinary matter, which I later confirmed, through Sheridan, to be accurate.
Everybody has an agenda, is the lesson here.
You can almost see my head spinning through the interwebs.
At this point, I wasn’t sure if the story about the ACPD was the year-old internal survey, or whatever was going on with the people trying to sell the story.
The survey part of the story
Fifty-two of the ACPD’s 163 sworn police officers and eight of the 28 civilian employees took part in the May/June 2025 survey.
Items that stand out in terms of the dissatisfaction expressed by the sworn officers:
- The organization’s compensation practices are consistent with the competitive market: 7.7 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
- My department is genuinely committed to psychological safety, accessibility, and inclusivity: 12.8 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
- My department fosters a work environment that respects individuals and values their differences: 14.5 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
- My department fosters a positive work environment: 16.8 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
- As an employee, I feel that I would recommend my department as a good place to work to anyone regardless of the following (but not limited to) race, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation: 16.7 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
Those last two stand out like a sore thumb, don’t they?
Looking at the civilian employees:
- The organization’s compensation practices are consistent with the competitive market: 18.4 percent increase from 2023 to 2025.
- My department is genuinely committed to psychological safety, accessibility, and inclusivity: 5.3 percent decrease from 2023 to 2025.
- My department fosters a work environment that respects individuals and values their differences: 7.8 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
- My department fosters a positive work environment: 11.9 percent decrease from 2023-2025.
- As an employee, I feel that I would recommend my department as a good place to work to anyone regardless of the following (but not limited to) race, gender identity, religion, sexual orientation: 1.7 percent increase from 2023-2025.
The civilians feel very different on compensation and being willing to recommend to others that they should want to work there.
The results are in: What do they do with them?
I reached out to Abbey Stumpf, the director of communications & public engagement in the Albemarle County local government organization, to try to get a sense of what, where, when, why and how with this survey.
Keep in mind here: Ms. Stumpf is an employee of the organization, and her job is focused on putting a positive spin on county government.
OK.
To emphasize, the survey wasn’t “a response to any specific situation within the Police Department,” Stumpf told me, but rather, part of a biannual – every two years – survey process that county government does across its organization, “which is standard practice for gathering anonymous feedback from staff on topics related to satisfaction, workplace culture, and similar considerations,” Stumpf said.
The surveys for the 2025 cycle were conducted in late May/early June, and the results were given to department heads in August, Stump told me.
Memo
Reeves addressed the results in a four-page memo dated Sept. 17, in which he noted that “while the tone was more negative than positive, many of the most inflammatory comments likely originated from a small number of individuals. Approximately five officers who provided feedback included personal attacks, which I acknowledge but exclude from shaping policy or culture change.”
Interesting that Reeves would go out of his way to note this, and in this way; you might be able to read into that statement being included in that way in the memo that there probably are some morale issues that need to be addressed that maybe Reeves isn’t consciously aware of.
What follows is straight from Page 4 of the memo, which is headlined: “Survey Action Plan.”
Leadership Transparency
Staff routinely receive notifications via e-mail about personnel transfers, retirements, and resignations. Of concern, many staff members readily admit to not reading e-mails, so PD leadership will have to ensure these changes are being disseminated during roll calls.
Morale
Enhance communications with staff in reference to new and existing wellness initiatives:
- Lighthouse Health & Wellness App: Private mobile access to wellness tools (new)
- Peer Support & Mentor Team: Trained officers who understand what you’re going through
- Police phycologists Dr. Byron Greenberg and David Scheer (newly contracted)
- Chaplain Services: Chaplain Jason Hartzog
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP): albemarle.org/eap
- CareACT Employee Health Clinic: Licensed psychologist available onsite (new)
- ACPD Fitness Program: Physical wellness supports mental resilience. Please connect with ACPD’s Fitness Trainer for personalized support and training plans
- Employee Wellness and Recovery Rooms (new)
Communication
- Extended rollcalls to five days a week (consider moving to seven)
- Weekly Executive Command Meetings
- Weekly Commander Meetings
- Weekly Captain Meetings (new)
- Notification of complaint disposition is policy-driven and dictated by employee law.
- Installed Police Commanders on every shift (new)
- Implemented monthly One-Pager notifications around PD (new)
Promotional Fairness
- Promotions for Police Sergeant and Police Lieutenant are held annually and follow policy
- Professional Standards staff conduct information sessions for interested applicants
- Eligibility lists are maintained for one year
- HR is involved in our promotion processes
- Facilitators meet with candidates afterwards
- Candidates complete a survey
- The Deputy Chief meets with those who are not promoted directly to provide feedback
- The new Deputy Chief and Chief Administrative Officer will work with HR to review our current promotional processes and identify areas of improvement (new)
There you go
The county government organization conducts employee surveys every two years, and uses the results of those surveys to inform its department heads as to how to adjust internal policies and procedures for the anticipated betterment of all involved.
ACPD employees, as part of this process, were surveyed in May/June 2025, the results were tabulated, given to the police chief, and the police chief formulated a plan of action.
The survey work was done a year ago, the results were given to Reeves 10 months ago, he dictated changes in response to the survey results nine months ago.
This is news this week, in June 2026, why, exactly?
My hunch is, it’s the emails from Nikki Sheridan, who I would learn during the course of looking into this story – and trying to figure out why a dated employee survey was being pushed as being breaking news – has a close personal connection to Mike Wells, the ACPD detective who is also the president of the Central Virginia Police Benevolent Association.
When I asked Sheridan about her connection to Wells, over the course of a back-and-forth spanning several emails, she eventually conceded the connection – the exact nature of which I will not share, not at her request, but just out of respect for her privacy.
Sheridan also confirmed that, to her knowledge, Wells had been disciplined internally regarding an issue over the use of his police cruiser in October.
I reached out to Wells directly via his ACPD email address to give him the opportunity to respond to Sheridan’s claims regarding their personal connection and the internal discipline matter.
He had not responded by the time of publication of this story.
OK, so, what is going on here?
Is this year-old survey being made into breaking news this week simply the result of an effort from ACPD detective who is the head of a local police union with significant sway – enough to get the ball rolling on the eventual sacking of RaShall Brackney as chief of the Charlottesville Police Department – to get back at his bosses over having been subject to internal discipline, and using a third party to cover his tracks?
Sheridan, who first reached out to me about this two weeks ago, hours after I’d written a story telling the Progress to lay off the police chief while he’s out on sick leave, insists that this is not the case.
She claimed, repeatedly, that her personal history with Wells had nothing to do with her effort to reach out to us about this issue.
From my research on Sheridan, she does seem to think herself to be an informed observer on local law enforcement matters, posting regularly to her socials about local police.
She also told me that “several family members have been employed at ACPD over the last 20 years or so,” which a third-party source told me he thought to be accurate.
“Professionally, the place is a taxpayer-funded circus that is reminiscent of the seventh-grade girls’ lunch table to me,” Sheridan told me. “There are sworn officers there suffering, leaving for lesser-paying jobs, and retiring sooner than hoped due to the climate. If this is all a personal disagreement, I guess that proof will be in the pudding of the survey results of the PBA survey that’s open now. I don’t feel like any of this is good news for public safety.”
I still think this whole thing is an attempt to oversell something that would’ve been news a year ago into being something relevant today – the timing of these two news items presented as bombshells, the first one about Sean Reeves being on double-secret probation disguised as medical leave, and now this second one, about present-tense low morale, to me, just cannot be coincidental.
The person who pushed the story on us is saying it is coincidental, and in the interest of being fair, I’ll give her the last word on that.
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Chris Graham
