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Posted by: kwflatbed

By Marisa Lagos
The San Francisco Chronicle

SAN FRANCISCO — Four years after San Francisco voters passed a ballot measure directing the Police Department to add more civilians to save money and put more sworn officers on the streets, the department has tripled its civilian workforce but lags behind other cities.
City leaders are scrutinizing the hiring of civilians with San Francisco heading into a new fiscal year in July with an estimated $338 million budget shortfall and with the Police Department on track to spend $25 million in overtime pay this year, $6 million more than budgeted.
San Francisco police have added 103 civilian positions to the department's budget in the past four years, but only about half of those positions have been filled. Civilians make up about 15 percent of the department's workforce, compared with more than 20 percent at many police agencies in large U.S. cities, according to reports issued by San Francisco and other cities.
The push to add civilians to police forces is occurring nationwide as cities aim to reduce overtime. And as cities face staff shortages and struggle to recruit officers, it's a way to put more bodies in blue back onto the streets. That's important in San Francisco, which is chronically short of the 1,971 officers mandated by city law.
"It's not enough to say we are civilianizing - if we have 10 new positions, we need to put that into context of the size of the department. Should we have 100?" said Police Commissioner David Campos, who recently requested a controller's audit of the process. "To the extent we're dealing with a staffing crisis, the answer is not just to recruit more police - in the short term we need to maximize the officers we have."
Ken Bruce, senior manager for the Board of Supervisors' budget analyst, said the Police Department has been slow to respond to critics, noting that his office first pointed out the problem a decade ago.
Last year, the city's civil grand jury reported that civilians made up 31 percent of Oakland's police force, compared to just 9 percent in San Francisco.
"(San Francisco police) spend a lot of overtime - I mean a lot," Bruce said. "And when we've looked at other police departments of comparable sizes in major cities, we found that San Francisco had the lowest percentage of civilian employees ... it's been a slow process."
Police Chief Heather Fong said her department has made major strides in civilian hiring in recent years, including those hired in top-level management positions. She added that the department lost many civilians when dispatchers were moved to the Department of Emergency Management and when parking officers moved to the Municipal Transportation Agency.
"The department has been way behind on civilian employees compared to other agencies ... but it takes time, we can't do it overnight," she said.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom also acknowledged that the process has been slow, but insists "much more" will be done. The number of civilians has increased during his administration - in 2005, only 5.4 percent of the total employees were civilians.
And the increase in civilian employees over the past four years has allowed 80 sworn officers to return to community policing, his office says.
But 52 of the 103 civilian positions added since 2004 remain vacant. The city hopes to fill 24 of those spots in the next three months, and Newsom promised more will be hired next fiscal year. The positions include jobs in budgeting, information technology, personnel and administrative support.
Fong said many jobs at district police stations - including people who work the front desk and manage the station's vehicle fleet- are also being filled with civilians, freeing up uniformed officers already assigned to those stations.
Part of the delay, Newsom's office said, is caused by the extensive background checks necessary for new hires.
"We've done more than any mayor has ever done," Newsom said Friday. "Is that good enough? No. Will there be more? Absolutely. Will you see it my budget? You can count on it."
The impetus isn't just financial: Studies have shown that adding civilians to a police force can help departments respond better to community needs and react more quickly to changes in technology.
The Board of Supervisors will also be looking closely at the effort as it works through next year's budget, Supervisor Tom Ammiano said.
"I think it could be a little faster, but I know it is happening," he said. "Hopefully the scrutiny will be there on the part of the Board of Supervisors and the mayor."

Wire Service

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