August
16, 2014
TurlockCityNews.com
By Kailey Fisicaro
Tuesday Turlock City
Councilmembers approved a resolution to adopt a response letter by Turlock
Police Chief Rob Jackson addressed to the Stanislaus County Civil Grand Jury’s
(SCCGJ) findings and recommendations on the Turlock Police Department.
Following the SCCGJ’s report of
TPD’s understaffing, Councilmember Amy Bublak, a Modesto Police Officer, wanted
to bring the understaffing conversation to the forefront, but other
Councilmembers remained quiet on the matter.
According to an SCCGJ document,
members of the 2013-2014 Stanislaus County Civil Grand Jury toured the new
Turlock Police and Fire Department Headquarters, located at 244 N. Broadway,
and participated in Turlock Police Department ride-alongs. The Jury did so
after deciding “it would be beneficial for the community” to see how TPD
“interacted with communities.”
Eight SCCGJ members
participated in ride-alongs between March 5 and 31, ranging from morning to
late evening rides.
In the same report, Case
#12-25GJ, the SCCGJ also discussed their ride-alongs with the Modesto Police
Department in order to provide the same feedback.
In the “discussion” section
detailing the ride-alongs, the report reads:
“The rides with each department
were quite eye opening. Officers from TPD and MPD were knowledgeable about
their community and showed great problem-solving skills. It was very evident at
both the TPD and MPD that the officers take great pride in their jobs and
communities and continue to strive to make both cities a better place to live.
The SCCGJ would like to thank both the TPD and MPD officers for their service
and time.”
Findings for the Turlock Police
Department state:
“F1. The TPD is understaffed
with sworn officers causing overtime and longer shifts for current sworn
officers.
F2. Sworn officers work well
with the community and are very proactive to help the community.”
The Jury’s findings for MPD
were nearly identical — the department is understaffed but works well with the
community. Which may have been why Councilmember Bublak asked to pull the
resolution from the consent calendar Tuesday night, as the issue is one that
she sees out in the field daily. She wanted TPD’s staffing issue discussed, as
the SCCGJ requested the Turlock City Council to draft a response letter to the
report and its findings, but the Council chose not to. Upon approval, the
Council could vote to adopt Chief Rob Jackson’s response letter in place of
their own response. In Councilmembers' eyes, it was a way of validating
Jackson’s letter. The alternative in the Council packet to adopting Jackson’s
letter in place of their own read “City Council could generate their own
response, however, the response written by Chief Jackson is accurate and
sufficient.”
Others, including the union
Turlock Associated Police Officers (TAPO), however, saw it as a way for the
Council to bypass the discussion of understaffing. Although staff has a choice
of whether to join the union, TAPO currently has 100 percent enrollment of all
87 members of staff, excluding administrators, and including the positions of
Police Officer, Corporal, Sergeant, Dispatcher, Community Service Officer,
Animal Control Officer, Neighborhood Preservation Officer, Evidence/Property
Specialist, and Detectives, according to TAPO President Turlock Police Sgt.
Russ Holeman. If it hadn’t been for Bublak pulling the item from the Consent
Calendar, the Jury’s report may have gone unnoticed by the public, and even
TAPO.
“I asked this to be pulled for
two reasons,” said Bublak. “One I’m kind of a procedure freak, so it’s a great
letter and everything, I just think that we should do it in a timely fashion
that we say go ahead submit it and then we don’t have to recant it for some
reason this letter wasn’t adequate. And then secondly, and most importantly, is
as we went through open forums discussing the water issues, the roadway issues,
we also discussed public safety — and the lack of. And it directly states in
[the SCCGJ report] that they, the Grand Jury, deem us not to have adequate
staffing and that we’re over-utilizing our personnel.”
With her next point, Bublak
directly addressed the Council, disagreeing with their decision to pass the
resolution without discussing the understaffing issue.
“I think it’s important to
bring this forward as opposed to just passing it without discussion or at least
somebody hearing that,” said Bublak. “It’s going to continue to get more
(offenders) coming back out having not had consequences for their actions,
because of the way that the governor wants to release people, so it’s important
that we understand we’re not adequately staffed, and those that are working are
far more hours than what they should. Yes, we are trying to get more people
but, I just want it to be on the forefront of your minds when people aren’t
getting responses as quick as they’d want out there; when you call for the
police department and they can’t come as quick because we don’t have the
people.”
“Thank you, Amy,” said Mayor
John Lazar in response to Bublak’s address. “Anyone else? Okay, we’ll bring it
back to the Council to consider the item.”
Councilmember Steven Nascimento
then moved the item, Forrest White seconded it, and the Council passed the item
5-0, with no more discussion.
“It just shows we have a lot of
education to do with the council on the impact of our compensation on
attracting new and lateral officers,” said Holeman. “We have faced years of
cuts and are behind most communities of our size. We need the Mayor and Council’s
help to compete for talent.”
Holeman explained that prior to
the meeting, TAPO had not seen the SCCGJ’s report nor the response letter by
Jackson.
“Turlock is a very special
place,” said Holeman, on behalf of TAPO. “Many of our officers are from this community.
We know what a safe, secure Turlock can look like and want to work with the
community to make it happen. We believe that we must increase our staffing
level and be able to recruit and compete for the most qualified applicants,
including officers from other communities.”
Following the Council meeting
that night, TAPO reached out to the community through its Facebook page,
Turlock Associated Police Officers, with the following status:
“TAPO appreciates the fact that Council Member
Amy Bublak brought up the fact that the Stanislaus Civil Grand Jury has found
Turlock Police Department to be "understaffed", but we are troubled
with the fact that the council failed to address the fact that the Grand Jury
found that the City needs to offer, "better benefits to attract qualified
candidates". In addition the 5-0 vote approving the Chiefs response to the
Grand Jury is also troubling. To believe that there is no correlation between
better benefits and more qualified candidates is worrisome. The fact that we
have been unable to hire a single lateral officer in over 6 years, have had
multiple officers leave to other agencies, and have not been fully staffed for
over 18 months shows that the City of Turlock and their benefits package is not
attracting qualified candidates. The citizens of Turlock deserve better!”
Indeed, according to the SCCGJ
report, the recommendation to TPD on finding understaffing stated:
“R1. The SCCGJ realizes the
shortage of sworn officers is due to budget cuts, but recommends stronger
recruitment campaigns and better benefits to attract qualified candidates.”
But in Jackson’s response
letter to the SCCGJ report, after giving thanks for their time and findings of
positive community involvement, the chief writes that he does “not agree with
the entirety of the comments in recommendation R1.”
“The way this short comment
reads it would appear that the jury believes our benefits are lacking,” Jackson
writes in the response letter. “I understand it is a very easy assumption that
just by offering increased benefits more people will be interested in a
position. If a little more vetting was done, it would have been realized that
our health care program for our employees is better than any comparison cities
in our area. To say we need better benefits alludes to the idea that our
benefits package is lacking. We must remember that benefits include much more
than just an employee’s salary. I anticipate in the future as our local economy
improves, our employees will realize increases in their benefit packages.”
But TAPO feels that the numbers
speak for themselves as far as recruitment, and tends to agree with the SCCGJ
report.
“In regards to compensation,
the fact that we can not attract officers from other agencies or get the best
qualified applicants speaks for itself,” said Holeman, president of TAPO. “The
city has been supplied with data which shows how far behind the Officers
compensation is with comparable cities. This data includes overall
compensation, not just pay. Officers and sergeants are about 18% behind in
overall compensation as compared to other comparable cities. It is our belief
that a comparable compensation package would help Turlock attract the best
qualified applicants which in turn would lead to a fully staffed police
department which the citizens of Turlock deserve.”
“The department has had open
recruitment for over nine months and they have only been able to hire one
officer. In that time two officers left to other agencies,” said Holeman. “With
only about 1% of all applicants making it through the hiring process and
training program, this is a highly competitive job. The City of Turlock must do
something to compete with other agencies.”
Also in the response letter,
Jackson gives a detailed report of the recruitment TPD has already been doing
due to the understaffing. Some of the main points include:
- The department is understaffed due to five vacant police officer positions and four long term injuries.
- Over the last two years (in addition to the above vacancies) TPD cut seven additional vacant police officer positions due to budget constraints.
- Cuts were necessary and due to declining revenues into the City’s general fund, which was compounded by a loss of federal funding for four officers due to the expiration of a grant.
- TPD has been actively recruiting over the last six months.
- TPD has reinstated the practice of hiring recruits and sending them to the police academy as employees of the department.
- Recently TPD received 450 applicants for the recruit positions, and are currently testing to identify the best candidates.
- TPD plans to send two to four recruits to a police academy in September (they will probably finish their academy training in March 2015).
- TPD is also actively recruiting for those that already have police academy training as well as lateral officers already working as an officer or deputy sheriff in California.
- But TAPO feels that waiting for recruits to finish the academy and train is too far off for Turlock Police.
“TAPO believes that we need
officers on the streets now,” said Holeman. “Not in the nine months or more it
will take for these recruits to complete the academy and the field training
program. It is quite likely that these recruits will only fill the positions
vacated between now and next year due to the fact that there are currently
several officers in the process of being hired at other agencies and probable
retirements. It's a good idea but will not fix our current staffing issues we
have now.
Holeman explained that TAPO
wants the issue discussed publicly and openly.
“It would be nice for the
council to have an open discussion on police understaffing and its impact on
the community,” said Holeman. “And then paying attention when outside experts
provide a path to a solution for that very problem.”
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