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MyspaceIn a dramatic exhibition of high-stakes political theater, Santa Barbara Police Detective Jaycee Hunter delivered a two-hour monologue before the Fire and Police Commission Friday morning, charging that crime rates have soared over the past 10 years while the number of arrests have plummeted, all because City Hall has aggressively shrunk the number of officers the Police Department could hire.
On paper, the number of authorized cops has dropped from 150 to 140 in the past 10 years. But in the flesh, Hunter said, the number of actual sworn positions lost was 17. And that doesn’t count the number of civilian support staff — 24 — that’s disappeared in the same period of time. Because of that, Hunter charged, the number of reported crimes has increased, while the number of arrests has diminished. In addition, he said, the length of time civilians have to wait before a cop responds to a call for service has grown.
Paul Wellman
Santa Barbara Fire and Police Commission meeting at City Hall June 18, 2010
Friday’s meeting was the fist time the Fire and Police Commission has met in City Council chambers; typically, it gathers in the low-ceilinged basement of the Police Department into which few reporters ever descend. The meeting came as City Hall grapples with a $9-million budget shortfall, and two weeks before the city’s contract with the Police Officers Association (POA) — which Detective Hunter represents — expires.
City Administrator Jim Armstrong — and a majority of the City Council — are pushing the POA to make about $1 million in wage concessions, or about a 6 percent reduction in salary, benefits, and retirement pay. The union argued that Armstrong has exaggerated the extent of budget crisis in order to strong-arm concessions from the POA, concessions that the union insists are unwarranted. In fact, Hunter accused Armstrong of deliberately starving the city’s General Fund budget — sequestering millions of dollars, that could otherwise go to cops, into obscure and off-limit administrative funds — just so he’d have a pretext to cut the number of sworn police officers. “The purpose is to make it appear the only place to cut positions is the Police Department,” said Hunter.
Paul Wellman (file)
Jim Armstrong
Normally, the POA is one of the most politically powerful unions on the South Coast and enjoys considerable access to and influence with councilmembers. But in many regards, this is a brand new City Council. Several of the new members were elected without any, or hardly any, help from the POA. And the union now finds itself without its staunchest supporter, former councilmember Iya Falcone, who stepped down in January. Many of the new councilmembers are viscerally affected by the severity of the recession; their support for public safety does not necessarily translate to support for public safety unions. In light of current budget realities, they contend that all employees — even police officers and firefighters — must share the pain. How far they’re willing to go when push comes to shove still remains to be seen.
Likewise, it remains to be seen what impact Hunter’s high-profile critique will have. But he certainly got Armstrong’s attention. Within hours, Armstrong delivered a three-page rebuttal — unprecedented for the publicly low-key city administrator. Armstrong said crime rates had not gone up as Hunter asserted. In fact, he said, there was a 5.6 percent drop in serious crimes from 2002 to 2008. He blamed the union’s success at the bargaining tables for any reduction in departmental manpower. Since 2002, he said, city funding for the Police Department has grown by 50 percent, or $11 million. Most of that, he said, went to increases in wages, benefits, and retirement. Cops who earned $72,000 a year eight years ago are now making $120,000. Armstrong rejected the notion that he was out to cut the Police Department budget, stating this was “simply untrue and not supported by the facts.” He concluded that Hunter’s remarks “do a disservice to the outstanding work performed by the men and women of the Police Department.”
Paul Wellman (file)
Mike McGrew
In the past, Sergeant Mike McGrew — compelling and charismatic — has played the role of key union spokesperson. But for the time being, McGrew — whose 18-year-old son recently died after a six-year battle with cancer — has yielded the microphone to Hunter, a hardworking detective assigned to cracking cold cases. Hunter has an insatiable appetite for crunching numbers, and the story those numbers tell, he said, is nothing less than chilling.
Hunter pointed out that City Hall authorized no less than 151 sworn police officers in 2001. Since then, that authorized number — as distinct from the number of in-the-flesh officers on the force and opposed to the number of actual officers ready to report for duty — shrank to 145 and then to 140. This year, Armstrong proposed reducing that number to 133. For the past year, seven of the department’s 140 slots have been vacant. It was Armstrong’s recommendation that those vacancies be made permanent. That was too much for a majority of councilmembers, who urged that four of the seven vacancies be filled, but only if the POA agreed to the wage concessions. (Other unions like SEIU have already agreed to a 6 percent cut. Other unions, like the city’s Management Association, agreed to take whatever cuts the POA agreed to accept. And other unions, like the Firefighters Association, are waiting to see what the POA does before agreeing to anything.)
Hunter contended that with the drop in number of sworn officers, the city’s crime rate increased. “The fewer officers, the higher the reported crime,” he said. But at the same time reported crimes increased, he said, the number of actual arrests has gone down. For example, he said the number of reported grand theft cases increased from 541 to 651 between 2001 and 2009. But the number of grand theft arrests in that same period of time dropped by 28 percent. The number of DUI-caused collisions increased by 200 percent in that time, he said, while DUI arrests dropped by 11 percent.
Paul Wellman
Detective Jaycee Hunter (foreground) speaks before the Fire and Police Commission Friday June 18, 2010
Police service was diminished in less immediate ways as well, he said. People in need have to wait longer for an officer to respond to their calls for service. In 2004, Hunter said, the department goal was to respond to 90 percent of the most serious crime reports — where the risk of death or personal injury were imminent — within four minutes. In 2006, the goal was pushed back to 6.5 minutes. Today, it’s 7.4 minutes. Hunter conceded, however, that in 2009, the department exceeded that goal, averaging a response time of six minutes and 27 seconds for the most serious crime reports. “The more personnel you cut,” he said, “the longer the response time.”
Hunter blamed the reduction in service on a change in budgeting policy initiated by Armstrong in 2004. Rather than budgeting based on maintaining existing levels of service, he said Armstrong shifted to a revenue-based approach. It was designed to encourage entrepreneurialism among department heads and minimize costs. But police and fire departments, he noted, provide the most basic function of government. “If you start telling the police department to make money, people who make the money will get the service,” he said. The people who don’t, won’t.” Hunter noted that the Downtown Organization had the means to hire a retired cop part-time to keep homeless people from harassing downtown shoppers and tourists. The Milpas Street merchants wanted to do the same, but could not afford it. “What are residents who live around the Franklin Center supposed to do?” he asked. “Pass the hat to prevent gangs and drug dealers?”
Paul Wellman
Deputy Police Chief Frank Mannix (right) at the Fire and Police Commission meeting June 18, 2010
But perhaps most troubling to the fire and police commissioners was Hunter’s assertion that the city’s crime statistics were not just inaccurate but perhaps manipulated to make the departmental response look better than it actually was. For example, he said that a computer search of high priority crime reports in 2009 revealed that 11 calls were “filtered” — not counted — if it took officers more than 30 minutes to respond. Hunter said these calls were “deemed to be anomalies” and set aside. Had they been included, he said, the department’s average response time to serious crimes would be much slower than reported. When asked to elaborate on this by alarmed commissioners, Hunter said he did not have “the data” to do so. Although Deputy Chief Frank Mannix was present — as were two police captains — none of the commissioners sought their response to these anomalies. They scheduled a follow-up meeting to discuss such matters in two weeks.
Chief Cam Sanchez, did not attend the meeting because he was at UCLA with one of his daughters. But in a phone interview, he commented, “I’m really disappointed and personally offended that [Hunter] would say such things. If he has a problem with the accuracy of our numbers, he should have come to me.” Sanchez pledged to respond to Hunter’s comments more fully next week.
In an interview after the meeting, Mannix stated, “Detective Hunter is a very good detective. But he’s not a crime analyst.” Mannix denied that cases were filtered to generate better response times. It was more a function of a new automated computer technology that came with some expensive bells and whistles the department wanted to take advantage of. He noted that only one high priority call was filtered in the past six months, and only 12 in the past 17 months. The most recent involved a bicycle rider who bit the pavement after going over a speed bump. In her case, it was first reported as a potentially life-threatening. But before officers could respond, she’d been transported by ambulance to Cottage Hospital. As a result, no officers ever went to the accident scene.
Paul Wellman
Santa Barbara Fire and Police Commission meeting at City Hall June 18, 2010
Hunter had charged that one year, Santa Barbara’s Uniform Crime Statistics — officially released by the FBI based on Santa Barbara crime reports — showed there were three homicides when in fact there were only two. This was evidence that the numbers cited by the department were less than infallible. Mannix responded by asking, “Why would we ever over-report homicides if we’re trying to minimize our crime statistics downward? Clearly, we’re not doing a very good job.”
Mannix conceded that the department had faced substantial challenges making do with fewer officers. But he said, the overall picture presented by Hunter was not complete. Crime trends for the past 10 years have gone down in general, he said, not up. In fact, 2007 saw the lowest crime rate in Santa Barbara for the past 20 years. After that, he said crime increased in general for the next two years, but for the first half of 2010, it’s been sharply down again. “He didn’t report the overall trend,” Mannix said. “He reported several key indicators, but not the general picture. He reported in five-year blocks, not what happened in between.” Mannix added, “I agree with some of what he said, but I don’t agree that we’ve reached a level of service that’s substandard. I don’t agree with that at all.”
This year marks the second in a row where the Police and Fire departments have been under intense pressure to undergo significant cuts. Traditionally, these high priority departments have either been spared or let off lighter than other departments, such as Parks and Recreation or Library Services. Last year, the Police Department was forced to accept a modest shave and a haircut, but no authorized positions were cut.
Earlier this year, Armstrong asked the police and fire chiefs to prepare a menu of cuts that totaled 10 percent. For the police, that looked like the loss of 23 positions. When that number was revealed this January — and pink slips were prepared accordingly — POA president Mike McGrew erupted. He accused Armstrong of engaging in “terrorist tactics” in order to win concessions at the bargaining table, and exhibiting poor leadership skills. Ultimately, Armstrong backed down. In the budget he recommended to the City Council, only seven positions were slotted for elimination. Four of those positions have since been restored by the council. And this week, the department hired four new police academy recruits. “The irony is that as of July 1, we’ll have more officers on the force than we did last July 1,” said Mannix. In the meantime, he’s preparing a more exhaustive response to Hunter’s testimony to the Fire and Police Commission.
Previous Month
Comments
When is someone going to have some guts and stand up the police union thugs? We could fire them all and have better and cheaper men and women working for us. The problem is the police have used the politicians and the politicians have used the police and this is an unholy alliance.
zigot (anonymous profile)
June 19, 2010 at 8:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Zigot, you are wrong. As in most things, you get what you pay for. The world of police employment is highly competitive, and if you reduce the wages and benefits package in SB, you will get a much lower quality of recruit, or very few recruits at all. The majority of candidates applying for police positions are disqualified at some point during the hiring process. They either flunk the background investigation, or simply aren't qualified in other areas. Those who are actually qualified will seek the best wages and benefits, as any intelligent job seeker in any line of work would. If you want cheap policing, go to Tijuana, they have very inexpensive cops. In the meantime, try to educate yourself
supernova (anonymous profile)
June 19, 2010 at 9:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Zigot is right.
EZK (anonymous profile)
June 19, 2010 at 9:45 a.m. (Suggest removal)
This is really getting scary - the police department is acting like thugs who are trying to take over the city's finances. Is it right to have cops that make twice what the average citizen earns, is it right to have cops that retire at age 50, is it right to have cops paid 90% of their last year pay for life plus full medical benefits? We need concerned citizens and leaders who can stand up to an out of control police force and put an end to this type of extortion.
reality_check (anonymous profile)
June 19, 2010 at 11:01 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The pay is not too high IF the the officers are truly qualified and hard working. Unfortunately the IF is a NO in many cases.
Let's see a regular process that terminates the bottom performing 5-10% of the officers each year regardless of rank or years of service so we know that we have a top performing department.
loneranger (anonymous profile)
June 19, 2010 at 2:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Another real problem that needs to be addressed is that many of our police officers cannot afford to live here. This removes them from our community, which both impacts their job and their relationship with the community, as well as attitude PERHAPS.
Laying off "lower performing" officers means that we need crimes on which they can perform, which is ridiculous. Ideally our police should have nothing much to do at all. Most people go into law enforcement because they genuinely want to help people. What happens from there is individual as well. But to determine a person's career by the amount of tragedy or evil the society can produce for them to deal with is nuts with all due respect. Its like firing firefighters because there weren't enough fires.
The Police Dept. is NOT supposed to be a revenue making department of our government. Politicians and police sometimes forget that.
EZK (anonymous profile)
June 19, 2010 at 11:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Geez EZK not sure your logic makes sense-- police should be sitting around doing nothing because there should not be any tragedy or evil? How many policeman should be sitting around doing nothing?
Maybe we should only hire enough police to deal with the amount of tragedy and evil we have normally. When we have 'excess' tragedy and/or evil we can do what the fire dept does and hire from other cities/counties to help out temporarily.
The police know who is a good worker and who is not. The pity is because of union rules they are forced to keep unproductive workers which uses up the budget needed to hire good replacements.
loneranger (anonymous profile)
June 20, 2010 at 10:55 a.m. (Suggest removal)
When you have performance as in volume being the basis on which officers keep their jobs, then its either hoping there's crimes or someone has to make trouble otherwise there's nothing to base their performance on. I'm sure any cop worth his or her salt will tell you that a good day is when nothing happens. Seems pretty straightforward unless someone feels the need to twist my words.
EZK (anonymous profile)
June 20, 2010 at 12:38 p.m. (Suggest removal)
EZK seems to be avoiding the hard question--
If each officer were to list 10% of the officers they feel are least competent to do their job -- would there be common names across the list?
If each officer were to list 10% of the offices that in their view have the lowest work ethic -- would there be common names across the list?
Having done this in private companies it is amazing how much agreement there is on the bottom performers. It is these people that should be removed.
loneranger (anonymous profile)
June 20, 2010 at 4:09 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There's value to that no doubt, but it should only be a factor not a determinant. Plus getting rid of ten percent of your staff (or in this case "force") every year simply to reduce by ten percent is dumb. Before you know it you have bo one. Yes peer 5eview is useful but it shouldn't be "survivor".
Government and especially law enforcement is NOT a private business. Even a private business that decided to by policy eliminate ten percent of its workforce every year in my opinion is misrun.
So it looks as if I haven't avoided any questions does it "loneranger", but thank you for the opportunity to further clarify.
EZK (anonymous profile)
June 20, 2010 at 5:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)
We are wasting our law enforcement money. Santa Barbara police should follow the Baltimore example to improve efficiency.
After 40 years, the US has spent $1 trillion and arrested 37 million people to fight the drug war that cannot be won. Drug use is rampant. Violence is more brutal and widespread than ever.
California taxpayers spent $150 million to conduct 74,000 cannabis arrests in 2009, the highest level since 1990 - the peak of the drug war. Total US law enforcement arrested 800,000 for cannabis offenses in 2009. US states spent $1.5 billion for their cannabis arrests. What a waste!
Californians spend $4 billion/yr to imprison non-violent drug offenders, half the total prison budget.
California taxpayers could save at least $1 billion /yr that we spend in a futile effort to eradicate cannabis and prosecute and incarcerate non-violent cannabis users.
Baltimore has a great solution. They stopped trying to win the drug war. By focusing on violent offenders they dramatically reduced homicides, to levels not seen since 1977.
We can have great law enforcement if we stop wasting time on a fruitless drug war. We can shrink cartels by 60% by legalizing cannabis.
wayneflo (anonymous profile)
June 20, 2010 at 6:08 p.m. (Suggest removal)
If these piglets spent less time chasing the marijuana users up and down the street they would have the money they claim they need...but instead they are wasting valuable resources....all because it is much easier to bust a pot smoker than say a house burglar.
I wouldn't give them one penny more....and i would actually reduce their budget by at least 50%.
When you hire cats to kill the rats, when they are gone....the cats are the problem
Way too many cops
Legalize all Drugs Now
rstein9 (anonymous profile)
June 21, 2010 at 6:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think Jim Armstrong is one of the best administrators Santa Barbara has ever had. He has a cool demeanor and is very bright and pragmatic. He does not play politics he plays logic. His assistant recently retired and Mr. Armstrong did not replace her. He and his staff stepped up and are now doing all the work..working very long hours.
AndyG (anonymous profile)
June 21, 2010 at 10:03 a.m. (Suggest removal)
If the SBPD are making marijuana a priority, then they are going against the voter passed law telling them not to.
EZK (anonymous profile)
June 21, 2010 at 12:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I've said this before, have the entire city staff withhold payout to their retirement fund for one year and don't cut any salary or employees. This is exactly what happens in the "real world". 401K matching plans are cut all the time. Then re-instate after recovery. If anyone is intimate with the city business, please comment on why this would be bad. The only reason I see this could not happen is the Unions would fight it.
Upper_State (anonymous profile)
June 21, 2010 at 1:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The reason this wouldn't work is because the SB City retirement is not a 401K, it is a retirement - City employees don't pay into, and don't receive, Social Security. This is a commonly misunderstood fact. The City would have to pay for Social Security for the employee if the City didn't pay into PERS. The cost for PERS (Public Employees Retirement System), when averaged out over many years (because PERS contributions vary in percentage) equals just about the same amount of money that would have to be paid for the employee into PERS. The propaganda that the City is paying an innappropriate amount into the employee retirment fund is misleading because the City would have to pay that money into Social Security if they didn't pay into PERS. Withholding the retirement contribution for a City employee would be, in essence, withholding their Social Security payment and I don't think anyone is in support of withholding private industry employees their Social Security payments.
cazador (anonymous profile)
June 21, 2010 at 10:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yes we need police. Yes we need firefighters. We must remember these are public servants that work for us, not out of charity, but for very very competitive wages.
They do not get paid more for less crime, less fires etc. There is little incentive for them to go above and beyond mediocracy. Did you know they are not required to respond to your call, you could be held at gunpoint or in a burning building and they could just decide that you are not worth their time or it is too dangerous of a call. I'm not saying they would or have, but that is the truth.
It is not their job to tell us if they are doing a good job or not. We the people, who hired them, decide that.
If there is a problem they can help with the solution, but we need to remember they are not the solution, we must be apart of the solution as well-ultimately it is our problem not theirs. If they need more 'civilian' workers I am sure there are plenty of competent people who would do the job for free as volunteers.
In many places Fire, Police, and Sheriff Departments have very helpful/successful reserve programs, which beyond training, is practically free to the community. What have our departments done to make themselves more efficient with the use of community volunteers? Probably little or nothing. This is an area that would be worth exploring. It would do wonders for the community if we could train local residents as reserves (pay for their training) so they can volunteer and help, I would. There are plenty of people here in town who could help if we facilitated way for them to. Instead of focusing on the people who want to help do good, we choose to pour millions and millions year after year into 'rehabilitation' and other programs for people that don't want the help.
There is an imbalance here that needs to be justified. I am sure we can find an innovative way to solve our 'problems'.
Tucker (anonymous profile)
June 22, 2010 at 12:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)
cazador, thanks for the post, understood.
Upper_State (anonymous profile)
June 22, 2010 at 11:18 a.m. (Suggest removal)
cazador answer is very misleading. The amount paid into Social Security is much much less than what the City and County is paying for the pensions.
The government workers should get Social Security and 401K plans similar they should not get pension plans.
loneranger (anonymous profile)
June 23, 2010 at 8:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Actually cazador is pretty much on the mark loneranger. Don't buy into the city adminstrator's propaganda or that of other government officals that want to point fingers at the hard working people for their failed projects.
Insted of going off of "assumptions" I'll make my point with facts. The average cost of social security per employee would be 6.2 % on the first $90,000 per this MIT written article,
http://web.mit.edu/e-club/hadzima/how...
So how much does the city spend on PERS? (Which by the way is a much more solvent and reliable retirement system than social security but I don't think that fact is in dispute here). Well in the early 2000's when PERS' investments were out performing the market the cities contributions were nothing... wait a minute is that correct? Yes, it was nothing for the city contribution. Why you ask? Well because PERS made a boat load of money off of the stock market and did not require the city to pay into the retirement system. But they did however caution the city to store that money for a "rain day" fund for when the markets did not perform so well. Here is where you can check that little tid bit
http://www.calpersresponds.com/myths....
Now when the market is not performing well PERS requires the city to start paying their fair share. The city gooses the numbers and claims a rise of "double digits" in retirement expense when they are simply playing a numbers game, more specfically Armstrong is being misleading. I would like to know what the city of Santa Barbara did with all the money that they had budgeted for retirment in the years of early 2000 when they did not have to pay PERS at all? Ask where did that money go that PERS told the cities and state to save for these types of times. Pet projects? A new million dollar bathroom on State St maybe? The decorative corn husks on Milpas St (or whatever those things are suppose to be)?
InTheKnow (anonymous profile)
June 24, 2010 at 10:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)