Twenty-five cadets graduated Wednesday from the Oakland Police Department’s basic recruit academy, adding officers to what has been a shrinking department, police said.

The Dec. 22 graduation took place at the Scottish Rite Center and the new class raises the number of sworn staff to 694, which is enough to meet the requirements of Measure Z, a parcel tax approved by voters in 2014. The Police Department has been losing more than the expected number of officers because of retirements and resignations.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.