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Over the last year the Pleasanton Police Department has seen resignations, medical leaves and vacant positions not being filled, which have all caused the department to make several notable organizational changes that the city hopes to correct in the next coming year, according to a new public memorandum from city officials.
Some of the staffing shortages impacts include all traffic and special enforcement officers being temporarily reassigned, one student resource officer having to cover the entire school district, an alternative response unit officer leaving, and overall less deployable officers available.
“For most of 2023, the department’s deployable sworn staffing level fluctuated near 80%, consistent with other similarly-sized police departments in Alameda County,” according to a Jan. 29 memo to the City Council written by City Manager Gerry Beaudin and Police Chief David Swing.Â
“The number dipped to 71% toward the end of 2023 due to many leaves (12 sworn workers’ compensation cases) and 12 vacancies (including an unexpected resignation towards the end of the calendar year),” the memorandum states.
Back in May of 2023, Swing told the Weekly that the department had reassigned officers in the special enforcement, crime prevention and traffic units in order to cover patrol duties due to a shortage in staff.
Around the same time, the Pleasanton Police Officers Association had declared it was at an impasse in negotiations with the city in regards to its labor contract. After three months of negotiations, the two sides reached an agreement.
Then in December, Pleasanton resident Vicki LaBarge spoke during public comment at a council meeting stating that she wanted to get an update on the department’s staffing levels after everything that happened during the year. That is what led to the city drafting the memorandum at the request of the council.
LaBarge had volunteered to be a neighborhood watch captain many years ago, which is why when she first heard about the crime prevention unit being temporarily dissolved last year, it immediately raised some red flags.
She said that as a longtime resident of Pleasanton she moved to the city because of how safe it was, but without a crime prevention unit and a fully staffed police force, she said she is worried crime rates will go up.
According to a Feb. 6 PPD Facebook post, this is already being seen as burglaries increased in the city by 62% in 2023.
LaBarge also said that she became even more invested in the PPD’s staffing challenges when the PPOA was at an impasse with the city. She said that even though she knows that other cities are faced with similar police officer hiring and retention issues, Pleasanton needed to take a firm stance and pay its officers comparable wages to surrounding cities.
“How do you attract new officers to your city if you’re paying less than the city next door?” LaBarge asked.Â
City communications manager Heather Tiernan told the Weekly that the recently negotiated contract is a “significant step towards retention as it provides salary increases plus increased pay for special assignments.”
But according to the dual memo from Swing and Beaudin, police staffing has been a challenge for cities across the country regardless of pay.
“The challenge of police staffing is not specific to policing or to Pleasanton and has been discussed with the City Council in recent police department bi-annual updates,” according to the memo. “Staffing of police officer positions is a regional and nationwide concern as evidenced in professional publications and news reports from both local and national media.”
In 2023, about 71-82% of Pleasanton’s sworn officers were deployable — other similarly-sized municipal agencies in Alameda County have a deployable sworn officer strength of about 62-95% with most agencies in the mid-80% range, according to the memo.
Out of Pleasanton’s 118 full-time positions, 83 are sworn positions and 35 are professional staff, which includes field personnel, dispatchers, administrative staff and managers. Of those 83 sworn officers, which include supervisors and managers, 71% can be deployed to the field for emergency response.Â
Of those 83 sworn officer positions, 12 officers are out on medical leave for various work-related injuries and 12 of those positions are vacant.
Even then, Tiernan said that the minimum staffing requirements and shift schedules are being met and that beyond those minimums, staff have been assigned to other speciality units.
“When necessary, the Police Department reassigns personnel in specialty assignments (traffic, SRO, etc.) to meet the minimum staffing requirements,” Tiernan said.
Tiernan also said that with the exception of the traffic and special enforcement unit, all of the other special units have some level of staffing — that includes the crime prevention unit.
In total, 15 sworn officers and civilian volunteers have left the department in all of 2023, which is higher than normal for the past five years. This number represents resignations, retirements and other similar reasons for leaving, according to the memo.
“The higher-than-normal number of officers out on injury is a significant impediment to staffing,” the memo states. “While one is out on medical leave, the city is unable to hire for their position without authorization for an over-hire.”
Over-hiring is when the city hires officers to cover those on medical leave until all the other vacant positions are filled. According to the memo, this strategy will be discussed in the city’s upcoming mid-term budget discussion but it will be challenging as the focus will still be on cost containment and reductions.
That’s why the department is really focusing on improving its hiring practices.
According to the memo, one way the PPD streamlined its hiring process last year was by hosting the Police Officer Standard Training law enforcement written exam, which is required for entry-level officers.
In doing so, the department hired three applicants and has other individuals at various stages of the hiring process. According to the memo, PPD plans to keep hosting these written exams once a month until the middle of the year.
“A promising outlook is on the immediate horizon as five officers will start the 16-week Field Training Program on Feb. 5, one police recruit is planned to graduate from the academy in May 2024, and four recruits will start the 6-month police academy this February/March,” according to the memo. “The five new officers will decrease the vacancy percentage substantially; however, the deployable strength will not increase until the new officers complete training in June.”
Other improvements to the hiring process include the implementation of a recruitment and communication software solution and streamlining the hiring process for academy graduates and lateral officers by expediting interviews for academy graduates.
“The city will be evaluating the recruitment process to look for strategies to deepen the pool of qualified applicants across the organization — including the police department,” according to the memo. “This effort will optimize internal processes and external strategies to attract and retain high-quality employees, foster the long-term success of the organization, its workforce, and best support the community.”
The department is also looking for ways to attract more experienced officers, which is something that doesn’t happen as much anymore but would save the PPD about $80,000 in training expenses for those in the police academy.
According to the memo, if enough experienced officers apply, the city can over-hire for the officers on extended medical leave and if everything keeps going well with the recent hires, the PPD anticipates all the specialized units will be reinstated by the end of this year — with the traffic unit being reinstated by this summer — and the entire department being fully staffed by 2025. Tiernan also said that the city expects to assign an additional alternate response unit officer and SRO by this summer.
But for issues like over-hiring, the city will have to find ways to bring more money into the city’s general fund budget, according to the memo.
However, LaBarge cannot see this current council majority being able to tackle this issue any time soon.
LaBarge said that she knows city funding is one of the reasons why officers were not immediately granted that pay raise when the union was at an impasse in contract negotiations and added that the city is to blame for all of its fiscal challenges.
“We’ve done it to ourselves,” LaBarge said. “We have absolutely done it to ourselves with the no growth or low growth policies that our council has had in place.”
She said that halting the east Pleasanton development plans and spending money on capital projects like the Century House rebuild and Ken Mercer Sports Park skatepark project have been serious mistakes that hurt the city’s financial capabilities to pay its officers better wages.
As far as the capital projects, Tiernan said those are funds that need to be separate from operating costs, such as the police budget.
“The city is currently exploring a variety of ways to increase revenue so that we can continue to offer the wide variety of services and programs the Pleasanton community expects,” Tiernan said. “The general fund pays for the operation of services and programs, while the capital improvement program ensures our facilities and infrastructure can accommodate the services and programs.”
But LaBarge said that without finding a way to better compensate officers with things like retention bonuses, believing that the city will resolve its police staffing shortage problem by 2025 is nothing but “a pipe dream.”
“I think that we’re going to be in kind of a tough position for more years than what they’re putting forward … just based on the most recent contract that they settled, unless something changes,” LaBarge said. “And I don’t see that happening because they’re under contract now.”
The absence of patrol officers on the streets is noticeable.
Motor vehicle operators are driving through red lights, making left turns against red lights, and driving at high rates of speed on streets marked with 25 MPH and 35 MPH signage. A major accident with injuries or death, is inevitable.
I have the responsible people for this as Mayor Karla Brown and City Manager Beaudine. Their failure to give the police officers contracts promptly.