San Diego Police Push Back at Plan to Hire Civilian Staff to Reduce OT

San Diego officials have hoped to rely more on civilian staff to rein in police overtime costs and ease a budget crisis. But the Police Department is pushing back, saying its own analysis finds savings would be minimal.

Last year, a city audit suggested San Diego could cut overtime costs — which keep rising and outpacing budgeted amounts year after year — by having civilian workers handle many tasks now handled by sworn officers.

Since 85% of the department’s civilian staff was cut in 2010 during a deep economic recession, sworn officers have been performing many tasks that could be done by lower-paid workers, the audit said.

The Police Department analysis doesn’t dispute that, but it says lower-level police investigative service officers, or PISOs, can handle only 6% of emergency calls on their own. The other 94% require a sworn officer, it says.

The department’s analysis suggests that city auditors may have been confused by the fact that those low-level officers can respond to 16% of emergency calls.

While that is correct, PISOs are only capable of providing assistance to sworn officers on many of those calls, the department says. On only about 6% of calls can PISOs act on their own with no help from sworn officers, the analysis says.

The analysis says, however, that other civilian workers such as analysts and word processing officers could help lighten the workloads of sworn officers and detectives by helping with time-consuming technology investigations.

Police work is becoming more about combing through Instagram posts, examining text messages and tracking where a suspect or victim was by using their cellphone, Capt. Charles Lara told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Wednesday.

“Technology is penetrating virtually every investigation we are dealing with,” Lara said.

But while the analysis determined that adding more civilians in those positions would help solve crimes, it did not conclude they would help reduce the amount of overtime detectives and officers are working.

The Police Department spent $55.2 million on worker overtime during the fiscal year that ended June 30, which was $8.8 million more than the $46.4 million included in the city budget.

San Diego has gone over budget on police overtime spending during 12 of the last 13 fiscal years. Mayor Todd Gloria and the council have said limiting police overtime is a high priority.

Jared Wilson, the president of the police officers union, said it would be a mistake to replace sworn officers with civilians or to rein in overtime significantly. He praised the department analysis as “fantastic” and said the city needs all 1,853 of its officers working as much overtime as necessary to keep the public safe.

He stressed that response times have worsened because about 200 officer positions are vacant. “We’re deeply, deeply concerned about the future of public safety in San Diego,” Wilson said.

But Corinne Wilson, an official with the labor union representing civilian police employees, called the department’s analysis confusing and in need of further vetting.

“With all due respect, this is unclear to us, and we look forward to working with you to understand,” said Corinne Wilson, strategic projects manager for the Municipal Employees Association. “What was presented today is at a high level, and as we know, details matter.”

Lara said the department values civilian workers.

“They’re the unsung heroes of the department,” he said. “They really do a lot of the great behind-the-scenes work that enable the sworn officers to do their thing. I don’t think this has to be an either-or.”

Councilmember Raul Campillo suggested the city needs both more civilian employees and more sworn officers.

But with the city facing tight budgets now and in coming years, it’s unlikely the city will have enough money to hire more of either without cutting police overtime expenses.

Campillo said sworn officers must remain the priority because they have the ability to use weapons.

“I think that the PISOs can help alleviate the workload, but our constituents expect a person who is able to legally use force to secure an area,” he said.

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