Crime may be dropping inside city schools but staffing isn’t keeping up.

The NYPD is now facing hundreds of vacancies for school safety agents.

“School safety agent is one that we are having difficulty recruiting for, our actual headcount is significantly under our budgeted headcount," said NYPD Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

The department says it currently has hundreds of vacancies with about a 12% gap in staffing.

The NYPD says it's losing an average of 37 school safety agents every month, while struggling to hire more.

To help fill the gap the department says it moved about 100 agents out of admin roles and back into schools.

It’s also created a new entry-level position with a lower starting salary to build a pipeline of future agents.

The NYPD says crime in schools is down this year, but officials acknowledge, without enough school safety agents keeping students safe and moving on time remains a challenge.

It says it is now looking at ways to improve recruitment including changing how candidates are tested and hired.