Calif. Police Department Cuts 41 Reserve Officers after State Audit

The Sacramento Police Department has cut 41 of its part-time reserve officers after a state audit flagged compliance issues with their employment.

The officers — all retired and receiving pensions — were let go Thursday following a recent audit from the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. The audit identified “several compliance issues” with the retirees working in the Police Department, according to a statement from CalPERs on Monday.

These retirees worked several jobs for the department including investigating cold case homicides, assisting in jail bookings and staffing during sporting events. Each retiree was capped at working 960 hours per year. The loss amounts to the department terminating almost 20 full-time officers, said Dustin Smith, president of the Sacramento Police Officers Association.

“This is definitely going to have an impact on the service we can provide,” Smith said on Monday. “There are things we’re going to have to look at and make decisions on how to continue going forward, or how we’re going to discontinue it based on our lack of staffing.”

A spokesperson for the Sacramento Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment when asked about the effect of the officers’ dismissal or compliance violations.

Smith said the compliance issues involved “technicalities” that determined the department was in violation of CalPERs rules. In the audit, CalPERS raised several violations including that the city re-hired people before the 60 day requirement, did not obtain the proper written documentation and could not demonstrate some positions were hired for “for performing work during an emergency to prevent stoppage of public business.”

Mary Lynne Vellinga, division chief for CalPERs office of public affairs, wrote in a statement that the agency is working with the city to resolve issues and ensure the pensioners utilized are “processed correctly.”

“CalPERS did not prohibit the hiring of any officers and ultimately the city is responsible for their hiring decisions,” Vellinga said on Monday.

The reserve officers, many of whom had spent decades with the department, began receiving notifications of their dismissal on Tuesday. On Wednesday, Police Chief Kathy Lester sent an email explaining the separation was effective on Thursday.

In her email, Lester said two police department employees had been in discussions with city human resources and CalPERs in the last few months “to find a path to continue the program.” She added that the city learned last week that CalPERs sent a letter directly to one of the affected a retired annuitant. A retired annuitant is a former public employee who collects a pension but can work part-time under specific restrictions.

“We were not notified in advance that CalPERS planned to send these letters,” Lester wrote in the email. “Following that notice, city HR informed us that we had to immediately begin to separate annuitants from the program.”

Among the people who lost their part-time jobs was Joseph Wagstaff, who had been with the department since 1978. He retired in 2008 as a police sergeant and spent the two years working as an annuitant in traffic control and jail booking.

He questioned why the city did not provide the retirees with more of a notice on the dismissal or the potential violations, particularly when many of them had devoted their lives to the Sacramento community.

“The city didn’t tell us what was going on,” Wagstaff, 68, said. “They had an obligation to stay on top of it. It shouldn’t be how you treat people.”

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