The city council unanimously approved the hiring of three new
police officers thanks to more than $1.1 million in federal grant
money.
The city council unanimously approved the hiring of three new police officers thanks to more than $1.1 million in federal grant money.
The body also voted 7-0 Monday night to approve a deal with the Gilroy Unified School District to evenly split the $146,759 it costs each year to employ an officer who is dedicated to monitoring and dealing with school-related issues. The city will pay its half with money from a separate federal grant that was originally intended for equipment purchases, and from savings incurred due to earlier-than-anticipated retirements within the department. Due to budget cuts, the school officer had been recently redeployed to patrol duty.
Cpl. Veronica Georges – who earned $119,000, including $3,000 in overtime pay, during the 2007-08 fiscal year – retired Tuesday, and Sgt. John Sheedy – who earned $138,000, including $13,000 in overtime pay, during the 2007-08 fiscal year – will retire at the beginning of next month. Their positions will remain frozen until Jan. 1, 2010, “which will accrue additional salary/benefit savings not previously anticipated,” City Administrator Tom Haglund wrote in an e-mail to council members last month. Chief Denise Turner will make provisional appointments to cover the supervisory positions, and the department will “carry the vacancies elsewhere,” he wrote.
“All in all, the chief’s deployment plan will reinforce the department’s capability to continue services currently provided after the retirements with the enhancement of the federal stimulus hiring,” Haglund wrote.
In addition to Georges and Sheedy leaving, Detective Frank Bozzo – who earned $118,000, including $12,500 in overtime, during the 2007-08 fiscal year – left the force earlier this year, and another officer left to work at the Watsonville Police Department, according to police officials. A fifth sworn officer was set to leave – also to Watsonville – but recently changed his mind and decided to stay in Gilroy.
After the three new officers join the department sometime between February and August of 2010, depending on training needs, Gilroy will have 58 sworn officers, or about 1.16 officers per 1,000 residents. The national average is about 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents, according to FBI data.
Gilroy has already interviewed 12 applicants for the three available positions, and Sgt. Jim Gillio said the department will consider more as they come. The department is only accepting applicants transferring from other agencies or who have completed police academy training – no beginners, Gillio said.
Sgt. Sheedy described the applicant pool as low compared to responses to jobs in other cities. For instance, the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office is still whittling down a list of more than 200 applicants vying for five positions, according to a personnel technician there. Likewise, Watsonville cut off its applicant pool for two sworn officer positions at 30 people earlier this summer, according to Senior Administrative Analyst Linda Peters. She compared those numbers to only nine applicants applying for 14 sworn positions “several years ago” – perhaps a testament to today’s harsher economic climate, she said.
Sheedy also said Gilroy’s numbers indicated the department’s low morale caused by the City Council and Mayor Al Pinheiro, who received a “no confidence” vote from a unanimous police union earlier this summer. The Gilroy Police Officers Association took the vote after approving $1.1 million in wage cuts to avoid layoffs at a time when crime seemed to be increasing. The council approved the concessions with a 5-2 vote, and the mayor defended the move as a fair follow-up to agreements with every other city employee that cut wages about 10 percent. Councilmen Craig Gartman and Woodward voted against the POA contract.
Gilroy was the only agency in Santa Clara County to receive the federal money to hire new officers, Sgt. Jim Gillio said, and one of 109 recipients across the state. The grant will result in 649 new hires and a handful of re-hires statewide. More than 7,200 agencies throughout the country, out of nearly 18,000 applicants, received $1 billion thanks to President Obama’s mammoth economic stimulus plan. Chief Denise Turner originally asked for $2.8 million to hire seven officers.
The federal funding expires after three years and the terms of the Community Oriented Policing Hiring Recovery Program Grant require the city retain grant-funded officers for an additional year without federal cash.
A first-year officer costs Gilroy about $138,000 annually in salary and associated benefits. That increases incrementally over the years, adding costs to the city, and the grant money will also not cover bi-lingual pay, bonuses for extra education, uniform allowance or merit raises – the last of which has been frozen until July 1. Paying for the three officers throughout the required four years will cost $1.8 million, about $620,000 of which will come from the city. By the end of the third year, police hope the economy will have rallied and that revenue from traffic tickets handed out by one of the new officers will offset the cost.
No sworn officers have been laid off this year, but across-the-board cuts at City Hall removed a public records technician, and one part-time and two full-time community service officers who dealt with graffiti, animal control and neighborhood issues. Last week Phyllis Ward, the former public records technician whose seniority allowed her to “bump” a 911 dispatcher off the payroll and take that job, announced she would be taking a crime analyst position at the Watsonville Police Department after 20 years with Gilroy.
