Top San Jose officials want to shelve plans to outsource airport policing to the Santa Clara County sheriff -- at least for now.
The city budget approved in June had assumed the sheriff would take over the policing of Mineta San Jose International in February. But city officials now say Police Department cost-cutting has reduced the savings from outsourcing to a level they don't feel is worth the headache of completing such a major switch in two months.
If, as expected, the recommendation by the airport director and other top San Jose officials is approved by the City Council, it will add $445,000 in costs for the rest of the budget year -- which the airport will cover with reserve funds.
"Certainly, our preference is to keep our Police Department working at the airport," said Mayor Chuck Reed, who leads a City Council airport committee that will consider the recommendation Monday. The council's public safety committee will review it Thursday, and the council will vote on the decision Nov. 29.
The proposal calls for the city's police officers to continue airport patrols through the budget year that ends in June 2013. A similar proposal to outsource airport fire and rescue to Wackenhut Services, a private firm that provides similar service at Moffett Field and other federal properties, also was shelved until June 2013 after the city received a $15 million federal fire-staffing grant.
But Reed said the debate over who provides police and fire protection at the airport isn't over. Soaring pension costs for San Jose's police officers and firefighters -- a key factor that drove the city to explore outsourcing -- remain a concern.
Reed has proposed a spring ballot measure to curb pension costs. Officers and firefighters call his plan illegal and have offered their own pension overhaul proposal, which Reed says is insufficient.
"It's really just an interim step," Reed said of the plan to keep city police at the airport. "If costs continue to escalate wildly, we're not done with the question."
City officials have been struggling to cut costs at the airport, where a $1.3 billion modernization unveiled last year has more than doubled yearly debt payments to nearly $68 million, even as airline traffic has plummeted with the slumping economy. The airport has lost about a fourth of its fliers and a third of its scheduled flights in recent years. It's lagging behind the Bay Area's two other international airports, San Francisco and Oakland.
To avoid shedding more flights and to try to lure new ones, city officials have set a target of keeping average per-passenger costs to carriers around $12. It's currently $11.67.
A city audit last month found that and the airport's public safety costs exceed Oakland's and "ranked relatively high" among other medium-sized airports. Ratings agencies, it noted, gave San Jose's airport bonds a "negative" outlook over the summer, citing costs and debt.
San Jose officials already have cut airport staffing in half in the past couple of years. Without a major boost in passenger activity, they say, the only remaining cost-cutting option is shrinking public safety expenses. The city this year cut airport police staffing to 23 officers, half the number it was at a few years ago.
But even with those cuts, the audit said, the sheriff's proposal could have done the same job for $1.1 million less annually, in part because of lower salary and benefits costs for deputies. The audit said Wackenhut's proposal would have provided fire and rescue service for $2.25 million a year less than the city could have.
The proposal for keeping city police at the airport calls for further reducing of the number of officers assigned there to 11, cuts that are expected to be absorbed by retirements and vacancies. But overall staffing would jump to 27 by offering off-duty officers airport shifts at overtime rates.
Contact John Woolfolk at 408-975-9346.
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