Our View: In evaluating the state of Gilroy’s public safety one
statistic alone won’t cut it. Much more understanding about the
issue must be gained and many other factors taken into account: not
the least of which is the city’s bottom line.
Taken by itself, the statistic that Gilroy’s police force is below the recommended 1.5 officers per 1,000 residents is alarming. With current staffing levels at 1.36 officers per 1,000 residents, some are calling for increasing the size of Gilroy’s police force.
“We are about as stretched as we can get right now without totally changing the way we do business,” Gilroy Police Sgt. John Sheedy told reporter Kristen Munson.
But City Administrator Jay Baksa is right when he says, “It is always about options and priorities … everybody is not going to get everything they want.”
We urge residents and officials to remember that the police per capita rate is just one part of the picture.
Before deciding to increase police staffing or to continue with the status quo, other factors must also be evaluated.
Other important factors to evaluate include the police call load. How many calls overall, per capita, and per officer does the GPD receive?
What percentage of those calls are for emergencies? How has that increased or decreased in the last decade?
What about police response time for emergencies? Is it within acceptable levels? It’s fine to wait for a police response for non-emergencies, but in those cases where officers are needed immediately, how long does it take for them to arrive?
How has that time changed over the last 10 years?
We also need to evaluate how current staffing levels impact the overtime budget. Is it cheaper to hire new officers with expensive health and pension benefits, or to pay overtime to existing officers?
Finally, as a letter writer recently noted, Gilroy would be a safer city if we could have a police officer and a firefighter stationed on every corner. But we can’t afford that.
Public safety employees are among the most expensive for any municipality to maintain. Expect each additional officer to cost nearly $130,000 year in salary and benefits.
If we decide to expand the police force, that $130,000 will have to come from somewhere. Given the city’s current fiscal woes, either taxes will have to be raised or services will have to be cut.
Establishing police staffing levels is an important decision, and one that should be made by evaluating all of the data and all of tradeoffs for any decision.
