With roughly half their budgeted staff, the records technicians
who serve Gilroy police are juggling paperwork and phone calls with
the urgent needs of walk-in customers.
Gilroy -– With roughly half their budgeted staff, the records technicians who serve Gilroy police are juggling paperwork and phone calls with the urgent needs of walk-in customers.
Police say the shortage has forced them to type up their own reports, pulling them away from the streets for hours a day. Records supervisor David Boles says his staff has staved off a backlog of paperwork, but the shortage could be pushing citizens’ waits in the station lobby.
“Right now we’re at minimum staffing,” said Boles. On a typical day, three technicians respond to walk-in requests, phone calls and a litany of time-sensitive paperwork. By night, only one does the job.
To summon a technician to the front counter, walk-in visitors must press a doorbell. When that bell rings – an insistent ding-dong – technicians break away from their work to answer it. Between fielding citizen requests, records technicians process police reports, retrieve files for officers, and enter stolen vehicles, missing persons, warrants and other information into 12 different databases.
“If we had the staffing levels, we’d have someone at the front counter constantly,” Boles said.
Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. Six people currently work for the division – five full-time, one part-time – and nearly as many spots are vacant. Five more positions have been budgeted for, and have remained open more than six months. If the vacancies were filled, nighttime staffing could triple, and daytime workers could gain an extra hand: a welcome addition to a division that processes roughly 8,000 reports a year, according to Boles – about 22 a day.
To relieve the burden on stretched records staff, police stopped dictating their reports years ago, and switched to typing them themselves. Before the shift, officers could dictate their reports while sitting in their cruisers, eyeing the street. The change saves time for technicians, who no longer spend time transcribing officers’ reports – as much as 90 minutes for a 20-minute tape, Boles estimated – but corrals officers at their computers in their Hanna Street station, some say. Computers installed in police cruisers, intended to keep cops on the street, haven’t functioned as planned. Police now average two hours a day typing reports, said Cpl. Jim Callahan, president of the Gilroy Police Officers Association.
“Our biggest problem with the records staffing?” Callahan asked rhetorically. “Our reports aren’t delayed – but we’re spending a lot of time in the office.”
Gilroy’s staffing woes are typical of police records departments statewide, said Kathy Moon, president of the California Law Enforcement Association of Records Supervisors’ Northern chapter.
“This is just not a standard office job,” said Moon, who works for the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office. Stiff background checks and steep 40-hour training requirements screen out many applicants; sometimes, the salary fails to impress, Moon added. Entry-level police records technicians earn $40,643 annually in Gilroy, slightly less than custodians and assistant mechanics. Standard secretaries earn $44,809, about $2,000 more than level-II records technicians.
Odd hours can also dissuade applicants, said Boles. Because records technicians pick their shifts by seniority, the newest technicians often work swing shift, 4pm to 2am. Records workers don’t get many holidays off, but the city compensates them with a 6 percent bump in their base pay, Boles explained.
Furthermore, technicians need significant technical savvy in a slew of differing government computer systems to track evidence, property and files.
“These aren’t Microsoft Office products with easy help texts,” said Moon. “Some applicants just aren’t qualified or prepared to do this work.”
And emotionally, the work can be difficult. As the first point of contact for anyone walking into the police station, records technicians face flustered citizens reporting crimes, criminals self-surrendering to police, and a grab bag of random requests – all competing with everyday filing and urgent needs, such as looking up warrants. If Morgan Hill police find someone wanted for a Gilroy crime, for instance, records technicians have 10 minutes to locate and verify the warrant, using two computer databases and a paper file. If they run out of time, the police have to release the suspect, in compliance with unreasonable detention rules.
“In one day, we could get none of those requests,” said Boles, “or we could get five in an hour.”
Wednesday, Boles spent the afternoon interviewing candidates for the job, alongside Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips. He declined to say how many candidates had applied for the five open slots, but was hopeful that some new hires could restock the records division – and ease the workload for its six technicians.
“For as much as they do,” Boles said, “I don’t think they get as much recognition as they should.”
