225 new S.F. cops in budget proposal
Farrell’s $34 million plan quickly hits opposition
San Francisco Mayor Mark Farrell is expected to unveil a two-year, $34.2 million budget proposal on Tuesday that would allow the city’s Police Department to hire hundreds more officers, purchase new equipment — including Tasers — and fund ongoing police reform efforts.
Bolstering public safety is one of three primary priorities Farrell has pledged to fund in the city’s upcoming budget. In recent weeks, he’s also rolled out proposed budget increases for cleaning up the city’s grimy streets and for addressing its homelessness crisis.
Farrell’s proposal calls for the bulk of the money — $22 million — to be put toward hiring 225 police officers over the next four years and hiring 25 additional civilian personnel for administrative jobs that are currently being per-
formed by police officers. Those officers would also be added back into active-duty rotations, meaning 250 more officers could be on the streets by 2022.
“We’re lucky to have some of the best men and women in our Police Department — we simply don’t have enough of them,” Farrell said. He and Police Chief Bill Scott have been working for the past four months to arrive at a staffing number reflecting the urgent need to address the city’s epidemic of property crime, particularly car break-ins — there were 30,000 reported last year, with only 1.6 percent of those incidents resulting in arrests.
The increased staffing, Farrell said, “will finally provide SFPD with the resources they need to ensure our residents and neighborhoods are safe once again.”
Farrell’s plans, particularly the proposed police staffing increase, could come under the knife once the proposed twoyear budget is presented to the Board of Supervisors on June 1. Supervisor Malia Cohen, who chairs the board’s Budget Committee, has been a reliable political adversary for Farrell since he took office in late January.
“Public safety is a priority issue for the board and San Francisco,” Cohen said in an email. “This budget proposal, however, looks like it was designed to be cut. Doubling down on the existing strategy, without proper investment in new training or reform, is right out of the (police union’s) playbook and does not reflect the thoughtful, dynamic leadership approach that the city expects.”
Currently, Scott said, the Police Department has about 2,150 personnel on its payroll, about 1,879 of whom perform “full duty” police functions, like working patrols, conducting investigations and serving on tactical units. The department estimates that about 80 officers retire from the force each year.
A 1994 amendment to the City Charter mandated that the Police Department maintain 1,971 full-duty officers on the police force at all times. According to the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s office, “The rationale behind the 1,971 figure is not known,” and some city officials have questioned its efficacy in 2018, now that San Francisco’s population has expanded. Adding hundreds officers in four years would surpass that mandate, but attrition rates and the actual number of police academy graduates each year would probably bring it back down.
All of the 250 new and reassigned officers would be designated to full-duty roles, Scott said, working foot patrols, beefing up the department’s burglary and serial-crimes units. Some would be deployed to the city’s Healthy Streets Operations Center, an initiative involving several city departments working to address nonemergency homelessness complaints.
Most of the proposed officer increases — 130 — would come in the next fiscal year under Farrell’s proposal. The Police Department already has funding in its current $588.3 million budget to graduate 80 recruits from the police academy, which is expected by September. That funding came from a five-year department hiring plan set in motion by former Mayor Ed Lee in the 2012-13 fiscal year. Another 50-unit recruiting class would also be created this fiscal year.
Two more new academy classes will also be created each year through the 2020-21 fiscal year that could graduate a total of 95 new recruits. The department, Scott said, will also consider hiring officers from other police departments using Farrell’s proposed funding.
Beyond hiring more officers, the proposed Police Department budget increase also includes $7.5 million over two years to purchase 130 new vehicles.
“Our fleet is in really bad shape,” Scott said.
Another $3 million would be put toward purchasing Tasers for the police force.
Farrell’s plan would also invest $1.7 million over two years in ongoing efforts to reform the Police Department. That would include $480,000 to develop an arrests database — one of the 272 reforms recommended by the Department of Justice in 2016 following several police shootings. Another $866,000 is earmarked for a contract with an independent auditing firm responsible for ensuring the Justice Department’s reform measures are implemented.
“These are all things that we believe will make this Police Department better and safer, and it give us the ability to sustain the things we’ve put in place,” Scott said. “And hopefully we get the support that we need at the board. It really will make a difference.”
Asked whether his reported status as a finalist in the Los Angeles Police Department’s search for a new chief might impact how the SFPD would make use of the proposed budget boost, Scott said his focus “is always making decisions that I believe are in the best interest of this city and this Police Department. We want to put ourselves in a position to be successful, and we’re going to need staffing and a budget that supports that.
“Regardless of what happens outside from that, the focus had to be on this organization and moving forward, and that’s always been my priority,” he said.