Guest Opinion | The Pasadena PD “Understaffing” Myth

Pasadena Now quotes Pasadena City Council Member Steve Madison in its May 25 article “More Money for Police?” as saying “I can tell you right now, I intend to ask for increased staffing, and I’ve heard other members of the Council say the same thing.” Mr. Madison’s call for more staffing rests on the premise that the Pasadena Police Department is s somehow understaffed. We submit that
the understaffing argument is a myth; rather, if anything, comparing its staffing levels with neighboring cities suggests it is overstaffed.

Pasadena is already the most-heavily policed city of nearby cities with 50,000+ populations

The most recent national data on police department staffing is from the 2012 Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, Full-time Law-Enforcement Employees. It shows Pasadena in 2012 with 230 sworn officers – a ratio of 16.5 officers per 10,000 population. Today, Pasadena is budgeted for 239 officers, rather than the 230 attributed to Pasadena in 2012; the PD presently has 233 of those positions filled. Pasadena’s population has increased approximately 2,000 since the 2010 census, so both the budgeted and actual staffing has slightly increased from the 2012 16.5/10,000 ratio.

As reflected by the graph above, every nearby city with a population of 50,000 or more other than Los Angeles that is reported in the UCR Program had a lower police-to-population ratio. Only Burbank with 1.9 fewer officers per 10,000 population and Glendale with 4.3 fewer officers per 10,000 are even close. Pomona, the City closest in size to Pasadena, has only 10 officers per 10,000 – i.e., a staffing level that is 39% lower per capita staffing than Pasadena. Other cities range from Montebello’s 10.9/10,000 to West Covina’s 8.3/10,000. The 10 nearby cities range from 12% lower per capita staffing (Burbank) to as low as 50% lower per capita staffing (West Covina).

The above graph shows more recent data on California cities over 100,000 has been gathered by the law firm of Graham Donath. Pasadena ranks 6th among 68 cities in California, so its staffing is in the highest 10% of California cities. It’s staffing is approaching 3 times the staffing level of Victorville, the lowest staffed City with a population over 100,000.

The “understaffed” myth purveyors assert that Pasadena should return to pre-recession staffing levels of at least 260 – i.e., an increase of at least 20 officers. So with Pasadena already the most heavily policed area city, they propose increasing the highest per capita ratio of police by around 9%, which would thereby increase the present 16.5/10,000 ration to approximately 18/10,000 — placing Pasadena per capita policing approximately 20% higher than Burbank, the next most heavily policed nearby city.

More Pasadena PD officers would be a budget-buster atop a budget- busting proposed police budget

Pasadena’s current revised FY 2016 PD budget is $71.1 million; the FY 2017 proposed budget is $77.5 million. Most of both year’s PD budget is the personnel budget – i.e., $59 million in FY 2016 and $66.3 million in 2017. The overall budget increase from 2016 to 2017 is $6.4 million; the personnel budget would increase by $7.3 million. In other words all of the increase plus $.9 million more is for personnel; the Police Department non-personnel budget will decrease by nearly a million dollars in the projected 2017 budget. Each new officer requires budgeting approximately $200,000. So proponents of more officers such as Council Member Madison would expend approximately $4 million more on an already enormous budget increase to fund 20 officers based on their myth that Pasadena is understaffed.

The staff’s proposed budget should be supported, and the budget should not be busted by more officers

We were surprised when the City staff characterized as a “status quo budget” a FY 2017 PD budget with a $6.4 million increase. But after drilling down on its components, we agree that it is a status quo budget in the sense that it maintains the existing 239 sworn officers staffing level. There are only 2 new non-sworn staff positions in the FY 2017 budget, both of which are necessary to
implement the body cameras roll-out; we supported body-camera implementation and support staffing the PD to properly handle them.

The FY 2017 PD budget is not a status quo budget in the sense of officer compensation. We urged the City Council last summer to increase officer compensation, and the Council did agree to an increase for our police officers. More than half of the $7.3 million increase in the personnel budget reflects increased compensation for Pasadena police officers, and we support that budgeting which is a consequence of decisions we have supported. The remainder of the Personnel budget increase includes ripple effects on such things as pension contributions and unusually high increases on liability reserves such as workers compensation claims.

Our endorsement of the staff’s status quo budget doesn’t mean we agree with all of the current priorities. For example, we think the helicopter operations should be significantly downsized to free up funds that might eventually amount to several million dollars – although that cannot happen overnight. Downsizing the Air Operations Section would be a means to support higher priorities such as more competitive officer pay, reassigning officers to meet Council Member Gordo’s call for a Community Action Team or Special Enforcement Section, and supporting increased civilian oversight through an Independent Police Auditor.

The staff’s status quo police budget is what Pasadena can afford, and its budget supports much higher police staffing than any nearby comparable city (including many smaller cities). With Pasadena staring at a structural deficit in its budgeting in the near future, busting the budget by an even greater increase
than the staff’s proposed increase would be unsustainable and fiscally irresponsible. The demand to increase the number of officers is a knee-jerk reaction coming out of right field that is a non-starter.

Skip Hickambottom and Dale Gronemeier are local civil rights attorneys who are active in the Coalition for Increased Civilian Oversight of Pasadena Police.