Manteca’s deepening municipal financial crisis delivered its first casualties when the sun rose this morning – 12 police officers no longer have jobs.
At the end of graveyard shift at 6 a.m. the last of the dozen officers who received 30-day notices completed their 10-hour work days.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Police Chief Dave Bricker. “Some of them (the officers who are being laid off) were among the best rookies we’ve ever had.”
Bricker was still hopeful the impasse between the Manteca Police Officers Association and the City of Manteca could be resolved. Talks are expected to take place again Tuesday.
City leaders – struggling with a $2.5 million budget shortfall still remaining after slashing other city services and reorganizing to whittle away at an initial $14 billion deficit - gave the MPOA the same options as the other eight city employee groups. The choice was to either forgo negotiated pay raises in 2010 and 2011 plus contribute more from their base salary to retirement and have $1,000 annual uniform allowances suspended for the next two years or opt to have officers laid off.
The MPOA was the only bargaining group that opted to have its own ranks thinned instead of take-home pay reduced.
Bricker talked with officers at the start of each shift Friday reminding them that they still had a job to do and to be “profession and courtesy as always.”
“This isn’t the fault of the people we’re serving,” Bricker said in reference to the double whammy of the Great Recession slashing away at property and sales tax revenue as well as the state swiping local funds to balance their budget on the back of cities and counties.
An ominous sign of more trouble ahead came Friday when state leaders announced the budget patched together just 10 weeks ago already has developed a $1.1 billion revenue shortfall that is expected to accelerate in the coming months.
That represents the worst fears of city leaders who believe with actions taken to date they can squeak by until at least June 30 of 2010 without any layoffs. If the state, however, goes looking for money to plug new leaks in the current budget instead of cutting back in Sacramento it will mean more municipal job losses.
The city will start drawing on federal stimulus money next week. That essentially saved the jobs of four of the 16 officers who initially received pink slips 30 days ago.
Should the MPOA still agree to the city’s proposal, the 12 officers would be called back to work.
Bricker said it is his understanding the impacted officers all have applied elsewhere for jobs as some agencies that received stimulus money are in a position to hire including the San Joaquin County Sheriffs’ Office, Lodi, and Hayward. Other cities like Stockton are using the money they are receiving to rehire some of the officers they laid off already.
Bricker also shuffled around officers to maintain what he called the department’s “core service” – patrol operations – at or near current levels.
The reorganization also takes into account the anticipated retirement in the coming months of two officers in addition to the 12 layoffs.
“There should be no noticeable difference in service levels,” Bricker said of response to life-threatening calls or felony crimes in progress.
The department will continue to respond as they have in the past. Prior to today, there were six sergeants and 36 officers assigned to patrol. Now there are seven sergeants and 33 officers.
The heaviest call days – Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – will continue to have the same level of officers on the street. One less officer will be on duty on week days when the call level drops off somewhat.
The seventh sergeant will work as relief to reduce overtime of supervisorial personnel.
There is a possibility of two additional retirements of patrol personnel. If these occur, the additional reduction will be made from one week day officer on each day and swing shifts where support from community service offices, street crimes, traffic, detectives, and school resource officers is available.
The gang unit up until today had one sergeant and four officers while narcotics had one sergeant and five officers. That force of 12 will be reduced and combined into a streets crime unit of one sergeant and three detectives.
Two detectives will retire, two will be returned to patrol, one was scheduled for lay-off and one will be assigned to the school resource unit (Measure M position dedicated to gang intervention). This will replace the elementary school SRO allowing that officer to be returned to patrol. This will result in a significant decrease in proactive gang and drug enforcement, but will be sufficient to investigate major cases and provide patrol and detectives with the necessary technical support.
Up until today Manteca had a detective division with one sergeant and seven detectives. It is being reduced down to one sergeant and four detectives.
This will combine the fraud, forgery, auto theft, and burglary case loads currently assigned to different detectives and reduce that team by three. These detectives will be returned to patrol. This will result in a slower rate of follow up on property crimes but will not affect the timely investigation of violent or sex crimes or crimes against children.
The traffic division will go from one sergeant and four officers down to two officers. The sergeant and two officers are being reassigned to patrol.
That will eliminate weekend traffic officers and significantly reduce proactive traffic enforcement and hit–and-run follow up investigations.
At the end of graveyard shift at 6 a.m. the last of the dozen officers who received 30-day notices completed their 10-hour work days.
“It’s heartbreaking,” said Police Chief Dave Bricker. “Some of them (the officers who are being laid off) were among the best rookies we’ve ever had.”
Bricker was still hopeful the impasse between the Manteca Police Officers Association and the City of Manteca could be resolved. Talks are expected to take place again Tuesday.
City leaders – struggling with a $2.5 million budget shortfall still remaining after slashing other city services and reorganizing to whittle away at an initial $14 billion deficit - gave the MPOA the same options as the other eight city employee groups. The choice was to either forgo negotiated pay raises in 2010 and 2011 plus contribute more from their base salary to retirement and have $1,000 annual uniform allowances suspended for the next two years or opt to have officers laid off.
The MPOA was the only bargaining group that opted to have its own ranks thinned instead of take-home pay reduced.
Bricker talked with officers at the start of each shift Friday reminding them that they still had a job to do and to be “profession and courtesy as always.”
“This isn’t the fault of the people we’re serving,” Bricker said in reference to the double whammy of the Great Recession slashing away at property and sales tax revenue as well as the state swiping local funds to balance their budget on the back of cities and counties.
An ominous sign of more trouble ahead came Friday when state leaders announced the budget patched together just 10 weeks ago already has developed a $1.1 billion revenue shortfall that is expected to accelerate in the coming months.
That represents the worst fears of city leaders who believe with actions taken to date they can squeak by until at least June 30 of 2010 without any layoffs. If the state, however, goes looking for money to plug new leaks in the current budget instead of cutting back in Sacramento it will mean more municipal job losses.
The city will start drawing on federal stimulus money next week. That essentially saved the jobs of four of the 16 officers who initially received pink slips 30 days ago.
Should the MPOA still agree to the city’s proposal, the 12 officers would be called back to work.
Bricker said it is his understanding the impacted officers all have applied elsewhere for jobs as some agencies that received stimulus money are in a position to hire including the San Joaquin County Sheriffs’ Office, Lodi, and Hayward. Other cities like Stockton are using the money they are receiving to rehire some of the officers they laid off already.
Patrol services remain at or near previous levels
Bricker also shuffled around officers to maintain what he called the department’s “core service” – patrol operations – at or near current levels.
The reorganization also takes into account the anticipated retirement in the coming months of two officers in addition to the 12 layoffs.
“There should be no noticeable difference in service levels,” Bricker said of response to life-threatening calls or felony crimes in progress.
The department will continue to respond as they have in the past. Prior to today, there were six sergeants and 36 officers assigned to patrol. Now there are seven sergeants and 33 officers.
The heaviest call days – Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – will continue to have the same level of officers on the street. One less officer will be on duty on week days when the call level drops off somewhat.
The seventh sergeant will work as relief to reduce overtime of supervisorial personnel.
There is a possibility of two additional retirements of patrol personnel. If these occur, the additional reduction will be made from one week day officer on each day and swing shifts where support from community service offices, street crimes, traffic, detectives, and school resource officers is available.
The gang unit up until today had one sergeant and four officers while narcotics had one sergeant and five officers. That force of 12 will be reduced and combined into a streets crime unit of one sergeant and three detectives.
Two detectives will retire, two will be returned to patrol, one was scheduled for lay-off and one will be assigned to the school resource unit (Measure M position dedicated to gang intervention). This will replace the elementary school SRO allowing that officer to be returned to patrol. This will result in a significant decrease in proactive gang and drug enforcement, but will be sufficient to investigate major cases and provide patrol and detectives with the necessary technical support.
Up until today Manteca had a detective division with one sergeant and seven detectives. It is being reduced down to one sergeant and four detectives.
This will combine the fraud, forgery, auto theft, and burglary case loads currently assigned to different detectives and reduce that team by three. These detectives will be returned to patrol. This will result in a slower rate of follow up on property crimes but will not affect the timely investigation of violent or sex crimes or crimes against children.
The traffic division will go from one sergeant and four officers down to two officers. The sergeant and two officers are being reassigned to patrol.
That will eliminate weekend traffic officers and significantly reduce proactive traffic enforcement and hit–and-run follow up investigations.
