tv Government Access Programming SFGTV June 25, 2018 8:00pm-9:00pm PDT
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station of investigators working seven days a week, more direct access by the community to those investigators which we believe is an incredible value added to our service. and the last two categories are healthy streets, homeless center, and operation efforts, which is 93 f.t.e.'s in total. that's 83 officers, nine sergeants and one lieutenant. this is really important for us. as we're staffed right now, we've made some tremendous progress in how we address the homeless, and it's all built on collaborative efforts with other city departments, the department of public works, the department of public health, and the department of city homelessness. we all solve these problems as a collaborative group. there will not only allow us to sustain it but to build it out and cover two shifts, the night side, which right now we don't
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have the ability to do. it would increase each station's ability to deal with homeless issues in approximate a more effective and efficient manner. in addition, the last 12 f.t.e.'s would be used to staff the psychiatric emergency response teams, and this team would be another collaborative effort, along with d. ph clinicians that would actually have our officers and d.p.h. working together to address the many issues caused in our streets that we see by psychiatric crises, and this is what we see daily in our city. that's how the 250 is broken-down. >> supervisor cohen: all right. maybe since we've already seen this slide, let's continue with the other slide. thank you. >> thank you. so i want to parlay that supervisor sheehy had a question about the cost of crime in our city, and what you're looking at was taken
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from a ran -- the ran corporation has done an extensive study, probably the most extensive studies on the cost of crime. this is a widely accepted study, and many departments have used it to get an idea of what crime is actually costing in their jurisdiction. so what you see before you is that crime calculator that was constructed by the ran corporation with san francisco data. and this is our 2017 crime data, our part one crime data starting with murder, rape, robbery, burglary, assault, agoed robbery, all of our dangerous crimes. what you see in your third column from left to right is the number of crimes in san francisco. in the second column, that's the estimated cost by ran of what each one of these particular crimes cost, and that cost is based on many different factors: cost to
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society, cost of the individual crime that's committed, court costs, incarceration costs, but what it costs is any time we have one of those crimes to occur. so this calculator also allows you to make adjustments based on the change based on personnel in your police department. in our case, if we're going to fund an additional academy class next year, we'll add 50 to our anticipated number at the end of the year to 1971. and then, the last column on your right basically gives you an estimation of how that would impact the cost of crime. so what you're looking at in the slide is if we added an additional 50 officers, the change in cost in crime would be a net 18 million less than the cost of crime to our city.
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the next slide you have in front of you is our projected academy classes, and as you see, the proposal is for an additional academy class in december of 18-19, and the second additional academy class, which, if you're looking at the second column, the december class would be the additional academy classes. >> supervisor cohen: and the december class says city funded, which means that it's already been allocated. >> no, it would be funded by the general fund. >> supervisor cohen: okay. so i'm sorry. in fiscal year 18-19, september -- i'm sorry. let me back up for a second. so we've got the july funded by
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the airport. >> correct. so let me just go down the list, and that would make more sense. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> so july, the airport has requested additional officers -- the july class will be funded by the airport. the september class would be the class that's already budgeted for, so that would be the atrition class, if you will. the december class would be the -- the new class, the additional class. >> supervisor cohen: okay. >> and then, the march class, going down the column, would be the atrition class, followed by the june class would be funded by the airport. so in those classes, basically, in terms of our -- our ask, our budget request, that december class is the additional class. >> supervisor cohen: chief, let me ask a question. the training for the airport officers, and the training -- in what way does the training differ. what's the differentiation between the airport officer and the beat officers? >> they all go through the same
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academy. where it's different -- so how we do it is the airport funds the classes. when we staff the airport, we have officers who have already been through training. they're on the list to go to the airport. thisser they're tenured officers, and the new officers are absorbed in the city. we don't put the brand-new officers in the airport. they're already trained, and those officers from the new academy classes -- when you take officers from the city and fund to the airport, the new class basically funds those officers. >> and how many officers will be assigned to the airport -- new officers? >> new officers? i think they're asking for -- hang on one second. [inaudible] >> so i'm carolyn welch. i'm the budget manager. so the airport is prefunding positions that are added in the year two 19-20 budget.
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so they are adding the 75 f.t.e.? so 55 in the june class, and our goal of 20 in the july class. >> supervisor cohen: so that's -- just real quick, so that's 75 new officers. >> and they'll get those transfers at the end of the year, so to start on the july of 2019. >> supervisor cohen: okay. let me see. so we have 75 new officers that are going to start july 2019 and be transferred to the airport. >> yes. >> supervisor cohen: okay. sandy fewer? >> supervisor fewer: yes, i just have one question on this. the chief said the new q-2's, that we absorb them into the city, and from this pool, our new q-2's that are tenured, that those go to the airport. is that correct?
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>> correct. >> supervisor fewer: so what we're getting is new q-2's, the people that start at level one. the people that go to the airport are level four, maybe, q-2's. is that correct? >> the airport -- officers have to request to work the airport, so they're the p-1 list, and we go by the request. so if -- most often those are tenured officers, correct. >> supervisor fewer: right, q-4 level, because they're a top level. >> correct. >> supervisor fewer: so the q-2 that we're absorbing into the city, they've done their f.t.o., all those things or if they done the f.t.o. and we're absorbing them. so my question is we had a conversation about some of them go to the academy, and some of them wash out during the training. so the ones that we're absorbing have gone through the extensive academy and also the
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lengthy field training program, is that correct? >> correct. >> supervisor fewer: okay. and so our cost -- our q-2's that we're absorbing into your city budget is actually at less cost than what the airport is paying because the airport is getting q ---people who are at the -- so if we took 75 from our workforce here that are on a q-4 salary, and we're absorbing entry level police officer q-2, there is a cost difference here that actually the airport is absorbing a larger per officer rate of pay, is that correct? >> based on their actual salaries, that would be correct. >> supervisor fewer: that would be correct. okay. thank you very much. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. you can continue. >> okay. so the next slide that you have
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is the slide on sworn f.t.e.'s, and going from column to column basically is -- i think the important column is the fourth column you see, the full number of duty officers that we expect to have by the end of this year, the calendar year. we expect to have the 1,971 officers. if we add the academy -- the additional 50, which is this last column -- >> supervisor cohen: yeah. >> -- basically, we will realize the net gains when those officers are done with their training. so we'll realize the net gain in 19-20, and that's the red circle number, which is 50 officers above the 1971. and as you go across to your right, it shows how much each academy class will net us in gains in officers.
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in 2021, the -- the additional -- second additional academy class will put us at 2,071 full duty officers. and then, the next column over, the 2116 is the third-year clof 45 officers, which will put up s at 2116. >> supervisor fewer: does that count the number of officers in retirement, also? >> that does take into account atrition. >> supervisor cohen: thank you. these f.t.e.'s that we're looking at on the left-hand side, that excludes the one that are at the airport or does it includes? >> that excludes the ones at the airport. >> supervisor cohen: so we could -- now i understand the ones at the airport are not a general fund draw, but i'm thinking about the actual
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number of officers that are getting out and getting onto the street. is it possible to reassign -- if officers are at the airport, to reassign them to beat or foot patrol? i mean, since the training is the same? >> the training is the same. is it possible? it could be possible. i mean, we have an officer -- >> supervisor cohen: it's not impossible. >> it's not impossible. we have an obligation to keep the airport staff for obvious safety related reasons, and we have gotten up to staffing for the first time at the airport, so we'd like to keep it that way, but to answer your question, it's not impossible, but we'd like to keep the airport properly staffed. >> supervisor cohen: okay. you can go ahead. continue. >> okay. so i'm going to go back to next -- the next slide, which is, again, the 250 broken-down.
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so this is just kind of the narrative of how the -- those 250 officers are broken-down. as you saw on the last slide, that's 145 new sworn positions, which is 50 sworn in each of the first two years, 45 in the third. so out of the 250 that we're requesting, 80 have already been funded and are in training, and 25 of the 250 will be the civilianized positions that we've discussed on friday. we've identified where those officers -- once we authorize and can hire the civilians, 25 officers will return to the operation positions. ok. so that covers all the things that we've sent you on friday.
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so i'm going to talk a little bit more in detail about the foot patrols and -- just to give you kind of an idea of what we're talking about, and i'll just go down the list. this is our foot patrol deployment, and for each of our ten district stations, and as you go down the list, you can see basically how we're staffed right now currently with our foot patrols. and starting with our central station, we're company a, 22 total. and again, this is a vast improvement in the foot patrol officers over this time last year. we were at around 70 foot patrol officers this time last year, 70 or so. and this illustrations 126 foot patrol officers in total. southern station, a total of
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12, bayview station a total of 7, northern, total of 11, park, a total of 10, richmond, total of five, ingleside, total of four, taraval, total of six, and tenderloin, total of 36. now, one of the things that i mentioned on friday is the sustainability of these foot patrol assignments. the department has undertaken this type of endeavor before about 12 years ago, and basically, we were not able to sustain it even though all of our preliminary reports at the time said that it was a good thing. we weren't able to sustain it. as i spoke to you earlier, in order to make this happen, just to get us to this point, we had to cut some pretty important units: patrol do you remember task force, we had to reduce our narcotics unit. we reassigned our pain clothes detectives in the station to make this thing a reality.
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those things we cut, although they were painful cuts, we would like to be able to sustain this effort and refur wish these units that were valuable units. >> supervisor cohen: what were those units. >> patrol surveillance task force, our property crime -- violent and property crimes. we had to cut that, and they -- they are no longer in existence right now. we cut that, and those officers were absorbed into the foot patrol. we reduced the size of our narcotics unit, and some of our investigative teams. and it was a tremendous impact. you know, we got the dividends on the front end. i think we got what we were looking for in emergency room its of visibility, deterrence and all that, but it did come at a cost. over time, i think it's going
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to impact us over time in terms of those cuts. we'd like to get those units back in motion, and this request will allow us to do that and keep our foot patrol units intact, if not enhanced. because even with this increase in deployment, there are still some areas where we'd like to see those foot patrols grow even higher. >> supervisor cohen: all right. thank you. yes, supervisor stefani has a question. >> supervisor stefani: thank you. chief scott, with regard to the foot patrol, i was just looking at northern station, there was 12 there, which i find that shockingly low. i know you're doing your best, and i thank you for that. i'm just wondering what determining factors go into where foot patrol officers are actually allocated. >> yeah. we did an extensive review in operations and basically had through field operation bureau
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under chief chaplain's operations side of the police department, basically had the district captain identify the areas where they believe foot patrols were needed based on crime trends, based on community demands, based on areas that we know are traditionally high traffic corridors, tourist attraction, those type of things, and basically that's how we came up with -- it was data driven, particularly the crime part. in supervisor yee's district, we talked about the twin peaks deployment and how that had an impact. the tenderloin, we saw immediate results in terms of on view arrests and things that the officers were preventing once we upped the foot patrols in the tenderloin. in your district, supervisor, palace of fine arts, the same thing. we've seen a nice significant reduction in crime based on the deployment of foot patrol and
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bicycle officers around the palace of fine art. so it's definitely data driven, but it's also driven by demand, and some of it's common sense. some of it's common sense. if we have areas where we know we're getting hit, where tourists are getting hit, deployment makes a difference. so the captains definitely had an input on that, in addition to the crime trends and the data that we're able to decide where we needed to deploy these officers. >> supervisor cohen: any other questions? okay. that -- that form that you had up on the screen, do you have a copy of that or is -- >> yeah. >> supervisor cohen: yes, do you have a copy for us? >> we can get them for you. >> supervisor cohen: that's fine. i can look at it on the screen. are you done? okay. perfect. let's go. [please stand by]
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was better suited to those type of deployments and in addition to that on the homeless effort, i can't emphasize enough the collaborative piece of this that in order to work in this collaborative partnership, there really a heavy pull on the police department. we work with the other agencies. it's about safety, number one. but the other thing is we've seen that it takes the building of relationships to really move in the direction that we move to get of the problems solved on the street. the street behaviours and getting people to the services they need. it's not just about going and forcing any laws because, in my opinion, that is not the most effective way to deal with this problem. it's about building relationships necessary to get them to a place where they're ready to receive those services and that takes a lot of time and investment and takes resources. so, part of this ask is to be able to do that in the best way
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possible and, again, is consistent with the departments of justice recommendations so definitely asking for your support on that. >> can we go back to one of the slides. it was academy classes. this slide. >> yes, ma'am. that one? >> yep. yes. that's the one. so, my question is, in fiscal year 19-20, i see you have it estimated as the 200 other than full duty. i guess that means officers, right? 200 personnel that's other than full duty. is that how i read that? >> yes. >> ok. in that number of 200, does that include the 50 civilianized positions? >> no.
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so those 200 is, i think, pretty accurate proximation. we have officers that are off on illness, disability, those type of things. so, that number is -- isn't exactly consistent, but consistent enough for us to estimate what that number is going to look like. so, that's what that's comprised of. those officers that cannot work full-duty for a variety of reasons. some of it disciplinary. some of it health related, those type of things. >> my question is, so does that mean they're just -- other than full duty, what does that mean? that description of duty. >> it means that they're not able to work in a full capacity. that could include some of the positions that we've identified for civilianization. but that is not what that category is.
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>> i understand. i understand. i was unclear about the labelling. when you look up the row ahead, one that says "full duty" in fiscal year 18-19, it says that it's 1971 and fiscal year 1920. it says it's at full duty at 2021. so my question is for these respective numbers, the larger title of the table seeing sworn f.t.e.s, does that include or exclude the civilianization of positions? so in 18-19, i'm wondering if that excludes or includes 25 civilianized? >> that would exclude. ok. >> the 25. >> so if we were to -- that's helpful because what i'm trying to understand is the numbers. a lot of -- so we are in agreement that we want to civilianize personnel responsibilities. >> right. that is correct.
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>> but the numbers that are always presented, i'm always trying to just think and tease out what is civilianized and what is not. this right here is a slide that is just uncivilianized positions. now -- >> i think i understand your question. so, the 1971, those -- those officers that are doing functions that we believe could be civilianized, that number does include those positions, those officers. >> that answers my question. and so that means that -- and that is consistent with the rest of the columns in this table. >> yes. >> ok. thank you. supervisor? >> yes. chief, just to make clear the 1971 includes the 25 civilianized positions. >> the 1971 includes -- >> 25 civilianized --
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>> it includes those positions that we believe can be civilianized, yes. >> and you identified 25 of those. >> yes. i think the other day you came and said it could be possibly 68. this doesn't include 68. >> no, it does not. >> thank you. >> supervisor yee? >> thank you. just training academy classes 's sponsored by the airport, is paid by the airport. i get that part. and then i also -- is it my understanding that any officers assigned to the airport, i don't know how many you have, but it's also paid by the airport. correct? >> correct. >> so, those numbers actually they are signed to the airport aren't -- that's not part of the 1971. >> you are correct. that is not a part -- >> that is additional. >> ok. thank you. and i'm going to say thank you
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for your presentation and giving us more information to go on. in looking at your budget. but in the first slide that you showed -- that you showed last week in regards to what you would do with 250 additional officers over the next four years, again i don't know if these are the right thing or the wrong thing and it certainly would have been helpful if we had, again, going back to the task force, to have a more thorough discussion and say yeah, these are right. so, i have -- i don't have that to go on. and -- and for us to absorb what a task force could have done in the one-hour meeting is very difficult. my comments now, i want to driflts away from that.
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i think we're enough on the timeliness of the task force enough and would have helped me in a little more informed whether this is correct or not. for the moment, let's just assume that the 250 that's indicated here out of four years is what we need in terms of officers to these type of functions. then -- then the discussion becomes -- and you -- and in the budget it presents a way to get with the 250 additional. that includes additional academy classes, it also includes the 25 civilianization of officers that you already identify and is part of this project. so i guess what i'm going to go and do now is talk about whether -- whether we can get a
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little deeper into how do we get to 250 and when we were talking about it last week about the civilianization of -- and there were 200 that were indicated in the audit of efficiency that the b.l.a. did, you mentioned that -- when you really look at it, maybe not as thorough as you would like to, but you looked at it, 68 were identified. correct? >> the b.l.o. identified 68 positions and what i said was we are perfectly willing to take a look at those 68. we agreed that they are additional positions that we believe we can civilianize. i don't know if it is the entire 68, but definitely we represent the report and will look at each one of those. >> can i turn to b.l.o. for a second. i thought what you identified was 200.
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from the audit. >> we identified a little more than 200 positions that we thought needed to be evaluated for civilianization. the the chief of police came in last week and said they looked more closely and they were as of that day saying that there could be up to 68. >> yeah. the 68 didn't come from you. >> no. >> i just want to make sure that we have the facts straight. can i -- for a moment here, let's stick with b.l.a. if we were to look at those positions and make some assumption that a majority of those 68 could be civilianized over the next two-year, let's say, what's the cost savings on that? >> so, just sort of using a round figure, sort of looking at the positions that were civilianized -- excuse me, the proposed 18-19 budget looking at average costs, basically would estimate a full-year cost of 50 positions that are civilianized would be about $7.1 million.
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now the budget itself includes $4.9 million in 18-19 for 50 police positions that would start in january. correct? half year. so, you know, assuming there would be some time to take to do a civilianization, if you look at having 50 civilian positions in lieu of 50 police positions starting in january, the costs would be about $3.5 million, $3.6 million. the savings would be $950,000. if it took longer than that to identify the civilian positions, say it took nine months and you were only funding them through three months of the year, then the savings would be closer to 2.7 million for 18-19. if you had them for a full year in 1920, then the savings would be the difference between the 50 police officers and 50 police officers which would be about $6 million.
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>> ok. so -- so if we were -- let me make sure that i understand what you just said. s if there were a movement toward civilianizing 50 officers that are doing work that's not really police work, necessarily, these 50 police officers could be activated into 250 that i'm looking at right now. >> that's correct. >> and the cost savings of not necessarily -- not needing, you know, so many academies and also just in terms of [inaudible] between the cost of the officer and the civilian is approximately for full year for 50 is how many? how much? >> if i just look at the difference and basically we're looking talt average cost of a civilian position in the 18-19 budget. the new civilian position compared to the new police positions in the 18-19 budget. the differential between
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position is about $30,000. in terms of what is in the budgets, though, in 18-19 to be clear, they budgeted the 4.5 million to bring on 50 new police officers mid year. now if you brought on 50 civilians mid year there would be a savings of $950,000 in lieu of the police officers. of course it depends on when you bring them on. in the second year, they bunlded $13.3 million to staff up for an additional 50 so you would have 100 police officers but say you are still looking at 50 civilians over that time to free up 50 additional for service. the savings would be about $6 million for over the full year. >> $6 million? >> $6 million for 50 civilians compared to staffing up additional police officers. the budget in the second year
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is $13.3 million for the police officers. we calculate that the cost of the civilian positions would be about $7.1 million. >> ok. this is taking into consideration that this -- once your academies [inaudible]. >> so how we're looking at it, is we present this to you is there's academy in the first year that would start in december. and then continue into the second year. there would be academy in the second year that starts into december and so you would be funding a part year. if you didn't have that and just hired 50 civilians, that then just looking at those budgetary savings per year, the first year -- you know, it depents on when you hired the civilians. but if you hired them in january, the savings would be about $950,000. assuming you only had those 50 civilians in the next year. and no additional academies. including the continuation academy from 1819 then this
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classingfication for the full year would be $7 million. the savings would be about $6 million. >> ok. >> and i have a question also if i may. >> yes, supervisor. >> also is it that also the police officers in an academy are starting at level one and there's an automatic pay grade to see level two, three and four in the following years? is that sdmrekt where as civilian, if you civilianized it, there isn't an automatic upgrade of positions. is that kind of how it works? >> we're looking at what was in the budget. but civilian positions have a 3.5% step adjustment. >> and how does that relate to the q1, 2, 3, 4 adjustments? >> i can't answer that. that might be a better question to the budget staff. we were looking as we provide these numbers, very specifically at what's in the budgets. >> ok. thank you very much. >> supervisor yee? >> i just want to say that in
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thinking about this and looking at the audit and even being conservative somewhat, i will make a suggestion when we start creating our motion what to accept and not to accept. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> you know, i just want to say that i think that my husband and i like the foot patrols. it actually acquaints the officer with the population that they are serving since many police officers don't live in san francisco. we do, but many don't. so i think it really has a lot of really good effects. i do know when you staff up on foot patrols that i recognize that their mobility to respond to calls are more limited because you are are on a foot
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patrol versus in a vehicle that you can get to in a certain place. having said that, i like the foot patrols in my neighborhood because a russian speaker actually controls a russian-speaking area of my neighborhood and the chinese person is in the chinese hood. i think that is really what san franciscoa intersections like to see. but in looking at this part of the budgets about the staffing, i think the b.l.a. in their report that came out and we referred to it in a couple of times gave us some suggestions about 20s 2 positions that could be civilianized. i'm not sure those positions are q2 positions or q60 or q 50s or how they are distributed among those 202 positions that the b.l.o. recognizes for civilianization because there could be more savings. also i think that they gave the recommendations about changing
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the watch off rotation schedule. and that is not changing the 10-hour day, but the rotation schedule, which could gate 66, an equivalent of 66f.t.e.s without any extra costs. and i want to also make a statement that, you know, i think that the budget confirm's responsibility is to look at fiscal responsibility and that is why i think we're looking at these numbers and it is not about,you know, do we need police or don't we need police? and of course we need police. my husband for 34 years a police officer. i do think that we need to get up to the level of police officers that we have in our charter. i also want to say that it also is concerning, though, around the budget that i understand that, you know, people say we don't want you to make an arrest. we want them to do other things. quite frankly, police officers
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or law enforcement -- i feel like enforce suspect a really big part of policing. so i can't help but look at the overtime cost and what we could be actually saving in overtime costs. that could be contributing to a larger police force. so we'rable loing at the costs being done and the investment cost being way higher up by 70%. those things are on a budget. they are very important. but i also want to get to the staffing workload analysis. and that i understand that a work analysis is being made right now. and, therefore, it does make it difficult for us to look at what the staffing should be in patrol and what the staffing should be. it's just because you yourselves as an organization have not given us a workload analysis that has been requested of this board. i think this is why the budget
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legislative analyst is concerned because we don't have that workload analysis that we would need in order to do this decision, making in a very i think real way. and so as we get to talking about your budget, i would actually say for this first year that considering that we can civilianize, look to civilianize even the 68 that you said to look at, i would wish you to cut to 100 positions of e 202 that the b.l.a. says that could possibly -- i mean are worth an investigation of being civilianized and actually ask you to do that analysis of whether or not you have at least half those position that are in uniform positions now. these are people who have been trained. they have gone to our academy. they're able to go out and do
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police work on our streets, to do the foot patrols and to do these other units that are so important to our city. and then i would sayage at v. and also the schedule seems like low-hanging fruit, something very easy to do. i know you need'nt confer about thing all the time. i would put this on the list and recommend that and ask this be put on the list and it is not changing the look, but a rotation schedule. and my husband and i have constant different rotation schedules all the time. i know these changes are made all the time. but the idea we could capture 66 more f.t.e. without a single cent more is just too compelling not to investigate it.
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i would suggest that we take the budget legislative analyst recommendation for the first year and for the second year put money on reserve actually after we get the workload analysis and also after we see the 68 officers or as i mentioned, 100 to be civilianized and see where we're at there and then put a certain amount of money. i wouldn't suggest putting the whole $13 million on reserves since, quite frankly, you maoub dealing with a different police force considering the civilianization and all that stuff. but definitely the first year i would say to take the analyst recommendation, second year putting some of that funding on reserve. i want to say that this is not to say whether you're for police or not for police. i actually for police.
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i come from a police family. i know how hard that job is and i know how important it is to the residents of san francisco. but i also know that some of the positions that you have called for, we are looking to end [inaudible] by 2020 and you are asking for police officers to work on homeless issues forever and ever and ever. we are looking at what i think that this city will now have the leadership and commitment to ending homelessness by 2020 so it lends me to believe -- to ask also will we need to have this unit? i get that if you put a police officer at a place that crime goes down, absolutely. if i had one on my block, i don't think i'd have one break-in or speeder on my block. however, i do -- police officers can't be in every block at every time. and so i know that we need to up the amount of police
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officers we have, but i think that we need to look within our own assets that we have, that we have officers that are trained and have gone through the academy, that have acquired skills and training and those officers should be on the street instead of those positions that civilians can do and then i think we should also take a really hard look at locking at the rotation schedule because that is something that we can, again, i can't emphasize enough how 66 f.t.e.s we can gain that without a single cost to the city and county of san francisco. which would amount in millions and millions and millions of dollars. thanks. >> thank you. >> chief, do you want to respond? >> yes, supervisor. if we can go to the overhead, i'll respond in part. thank you for your comments.
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i appreciate your comments. we agree that we should take a look at some of these positions. some of them we know up front that we don't agree with. when we look at the 202 positions in the b.l.a. report that are nonpatrol assignments that are suggesting that we take a look at. some of the positions we know up front that we don't agree. we think they're vital that those be sworn positions. but there are others that i think is definitely worth having that discussion and taking a a deep look at whether that can be civilianized. we do agree there. i can tell you we don't think it's 200. we have identify what had we think is 68 that should be looked at. i think as was pointed out, that's a very good starting point. i want to point out to you what's driving a lot of what we're asking for. it is not -- i fully appreciate and understand being data driven and i said this on friday.
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it would be great if the homeless issues were solved by 2020 and i'm as optimistic as anybody. but our reality is we need to deal with where we are now and looking forward we have some significant issues in policing and collaborate rating on what is happening on our streets as it relates to homeless. if you look at our priorities, which are partly driven by the demands of this city. homelessness and harm reduction is right there in terms of our fours top priorities. violent crime, violent crime and foot patrol. some of those aren't necessarily driven by data. some are, some aren't. some of them are driven by what the community is telling us they need and want from their police department. we eve seen significant progress on all of these issues. we staffed up our foot patrol
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but at a cost. we cut other units to make it happen. we don't believe those cuts are sustainable in order for this police department to be effective. we cut pretty important units to make it happen. trot crime. right now, the news is buzzing with stories about our vehicle break-in problem. as we speak, we're down about 20% for the year. that speaks a lot for the work that has been done and the adjustment that we made. we would like to sustain that. violent crime. we're down almost 40% in homicides over this time last year. if you look at the rand calculator that we just put up, give than they're suggesting that a homicide costs society about $8 million, how much saving that? we're about 13 homicides below where we were this time last year. we want to sustain that
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progress. we made some adjustments, we reallocated and we haven't filled positions in order to sustain what we're doing. without this staffing, it will be very, very difficult to sustain these efforts and that is why i'm asking for your support. these things aren't -- some of them are driven strictly by day ta. property crime, violent crime. others are driven by the community telling us we need to see you out there. others are good policing. it preventses crime from happening and we can show that. the question is can we sustain what we're doing? >> what i mentioned is i understand that the 202 may not be -- of course we're laypersons so an untrained eye when we look at positions that could be civilianized and without having in in-depth knowledge. but actually i'm asking for you to look at half the amount that
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the b.l.a. has recommended, would you be 100 officers. if we looked at that and the rotation schedule, we could get you to the amount of officers that you need on the straoe. without a staffing workload plan and analysis, i also think it's premature because we are accountable to the taxpayers of san francisco. and we would like to know, it's our responsibility to know what the workload analysis is. we're laypersons. i know a little more because i've been married to a cop for 35 year, but i don't think that we have a deep analysis of the workloads and i'm sorry that that analysis is not done yet. but i think this was part of the b.l.a.s suggestion. why they recommended this is because they didn't see a staffing workload andage sister.
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-- and analysis and that actually needs to be done and for us to be able to make a sound financial or fiscal decision here is, what is the plan? and will it cover this? so those three things. one, that we don't have a staffing plan. another thing is that 105 new officers will come online without the additional positions. plus f you look at 100 civilianized positions in your department, and you look at the rotations -- changing the rotation, which gives us 66 -- equivalent of 66 new f.t.t. e. -- f.t.e.s, we can accomplish this and get you to where you want to be and also being fiscally responsible for the people of san francisco.
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>> thank you, chair. chief scott, can you put up the chart where you show where the officers will be going in terms of serial crimes unit? ok, thank you. >> yes, ma'am. >> so, to me, what i'm seeing is an analysis of the workload. that you're facing based on what your captains are telling you, based on what your commanders are telling you, based on what you are seeing out on the street based on the calls that are coming in. what that says to me is this is what you need based on your experience because you are the chief and you talked to your commanders and you talked to your captains and you have come up with this which i think is their staffing plan that we actually need. i am not in favor of cutting
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any of the academy classes. the second class barely gets to 200 new police officers in 2020 and we know that the 1971 number in the charter does not account for population growth and we need more officers to create flexibility for the foot patrols. i'm actually shocked to see only 11 in the station. we need more foot patrols and i would hope that every supervisor would agree to that. and what i see on the streets or what i don't see on the streets a presence and that is what i hear about all the time. and that is what i think we owe our taxpayers in terms of providing public safety. it is one of the core functions of local government is to protect our citizens and i feel like we need -- we have to do it in a way that's smart. what i'm seeing here on the screen is an analysis of the workloads and where you need to send people in terms of psychiatric units.
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i'm seeing that. i think without the second class, we will barely be above the outdated number. again, 1994. we've met it once. the people said we want 1971 officers. in 1994, we met that once. in 2009. it is 24 years later. you're asking for 250 officers over the next four years. it is something that i support. and it doesn't mean that we can't do more on civilianization. but to me, the bottom line is that we need more sworn personnel. i feel like the rotation schedule is something that can be looked at, but i think it is more nuanced and it is a serious issue and we can't make decisions here without knowing that. question have to understand and what i hear all the time, our city is growing, our problems are clear and people want more
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police officers and crime does cost money. although i understand the need to look further into what we need, maybe a task force. i trust that you and your commanders and your captains -- and i talk to my captains all the time and i know what they need and i see what is going on in my district. i trust that that plan that you put up there is going to get us to where we need. so, i am not for cutting any of the classes, i'm not for cutting any of the police officers that have been budgeted in this budget. thank you. >> supervisor furor? >> i just wanted to emphasize and thank you supervisor stefani, that is not a work plan for the whole police department. that is not a whole staffing plan for the whole police department. but the workload analysis isn't just for what they're proposing. the workload analysis is for all the patrol, the whole
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police department. it isn't just for this. and we're not saying i think here that we don't want them to get up to the 250 officers. what i'm saying, quite frankly, is that i think there is a way to get there using internal mechanisms and things that can be cost effective which, as a member of the budget committee, i feel like i have to look a. and so anyway, i just wanted to re-emphasize that and for clarification. >> thank you. supervisor sheehy? >> i just want to echo what supervisor stefani said. and it's really -- you know, for me, and i think making policy by anecdote isn't necessarily the best thing, but i was at a community meeting a week ago. a woman was assaulted, carrying her baby walking down the street. in a calm neighborhood where
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that should not be expected. in fact, the husband said, you know, we moved here from the mission and never imagined that it would be this dangerous. and yet when the captain of a station in addressing the crowd states, you know, that there are 20 fewer officers assigned to his district than 10-year ago, it brings into stark contrast, you know, the difficulties in allocation that face this department. there seems to be the air of right now we're sufficient and just adding a few more for a few marginal gains. but what i've seen and, again, the foot patrols which i've been on top of, we had issues in my district and where we have deployed those issues have dramatically decreased.
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whether it is property crime or violent crime, we've seen the impacts and the quality of life and i talked this when the chief first game. -- first came. and i do look at the cost of crime and i do think that for our residents, those are real costs. when they're victims of crime. just looking at these numbers, the value of one officer is almost $400,000 in reduced crime costs. and i just believe that for our residents, there's expectations of greater safety than what they're realising on a daily basis. and one of the things that i have heard since i've been in office that i hear as i'm going out of office, it's like one of the things that people greatly have appreciated was the focus on improving public safety. so i, likewise, am not
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supportive of cutting any classes. i think that there is a point we need to get to. certainly there can be discussions that can take place over the next couple of years, whether it is additional civilianization, i think it is a great step forward. but let's not take our foot off the pedal, you know, even talking about changing how people are deployed. you know, the schedule for officers. those are all things that can take place. but first let's commit to having enough officers on the streets and if the out years we can decrease the number of officers we need, due to these change, then that is a good thing. but right now we have the ability, you know, to do this and we need to signal to our residents that we're going to stand with them and provide them the level of public safety that they deserve. >> supervisor yee? >> thank you. once again, i want to reiterate that this is a four-year plan
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that we're looking at to try to identify how to increase or have 250 officers to play a role. i could change once we finish the staffing pattern, suggestions from the task force. we don't know. it could be that we want more. it could be that what you're saying today for four years is absolutely, you know, right on. to me, that is not in debate right now because we don't have the results yet. i think what's in debate is how do we do this more efficiently. and what i -- and that is why i asked the b.l.a. to do this study in the first place, the audit of police efficiency. and as they suggested from the beginning that if the 250 is
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really the magic number in regards to having officers that can do these roles, then there's many ways to get there. and so when i factor in, what my daughters are, which is to make sure that we have adequate police force, balanced with how do we spend our money in the city, then my suggestion is pretty straight forward. that, you know, my colleagues here have looked at the report also and saw that there were 202. one supervisor suggested 100. and if you had not come up with a number of 68, with strong possibilities, i probably would have support add 100. but i'm also trusting that the 68 are honest observations that you could workth
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