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The Manteca Police Officers Association doesn’t want to change the terms of their contract with the city to allow for Manteca to rehire at least part of the 12 officers that were laid off due to the budget deficit.
MPOA President Ken Wells notified City Manager Steve Pinkerton that the organization Thursday evening discussed the proposal and that it was rejected without a vote.
Pinkerton said the MPOA decision shuts the door on revisiting the layoff of 12 police officers. Although details of the side letter were not shared, municipal leaders were hopeful an affirmative vote would have allowed the city to hire back six of the 10 officers. Based on the original offer, the side letter probably indicated that if the MPOA opted to give up some or all of their negotiated pay rises in 2011 and 2012 the city would be able to hire back six officers. The original proposal was for officers to also give up a $1,000 a year uniform allowance plus pay more into their retirement. That would have avoided the 12 layoffs that took place.
The MPOA and city have a binding contract. The only way it could have been altered was if the MPOA wished to do so. The city went ahead with layoffs since they do not have the funds to keep all of the police officers and provide them with pay raises for the next two years plus cover 100 percent of the retirement and uniform alliances.
The city’s strategy to deal with the need to finish bridging a $14 billion deficit was to give each bargaining group the option of giving up future pay raises with some retirement concession. If not, layoffs would occur to help reduce costs.
The decision rested with the bargaining groups and not the city since the contracts are legally binding.
“I’m disappointed that the membership didn’t get a chance to vote,” Pinkerton said.
Police Chief Dave Bricker has secured assurance from the city manager that staffing will not drop below 55 sworn officers.
If more than five officers retire in the coming months that they will be replaced.
The staffing strategy that Bricker implemented last month after 12 police officers were laid off takes into account the five retirements. Bricker has said it would be impossible to go below 55 officers and maintain the current street presence. The number of officers went from 72 to 60.
Bricker shuffled around officers to maintain what he called the department’s “core service” – patrol operations – at or near current levels.
The department continues to respond as they have in the past. Prior to Oct. 10, 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 – continue to have the same level of officers on the street.
The seventh sergeant works as relief to reduce overtime of supervisorial personnel.
The gang unit up until Oct. 10 had one sergeant and four officers while narcotics had one sergeant and five officers. That force of 12 was reduced and combined into a streets crime unit of one sergeant and three detectives.
Two of those detectives plan on retiring, two returned to patrol, one lost their job, and one was assigned to the school resource unit (Measure M position dedicated to gang intervention). He replaced the elementary school resource officer allowing that officer to be returned to patrol. This resulted in a significant decrease in proactive gang and drug enforcement, but is sufficient to investigate major cases and provide patrol and detectives with the necessary technical support.
Before Oct. 10 Manteca had a detective division with one sergeant and seven detectives. It was reduced down to one sergeant and four detectives.
This combined the fraud, forgery, auto theft, and burglary case loads that were assigned to different detectives and reduced that team by three. These detectives were 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 went from one sergeant and four officers down to two officers. The sergeant and two officers were reassigned to patrol.
That eliminated weekend traffic officers and significantly reduced proactive traffic enforcement and hit–and-run follow up investigations.
MPOA President Ken Wells notified City Manager Steve Pinkerton that the organization Thursday evening discussed the proposal and that it was rejected without a vote.
Pinkerton said the MPOA decision shuts the door on revisiting the layoff of 12 police officers. Although details of the side letter were not shared, municipal leaders were hopeful an affirmative vote would have allowed the city to hire back six of the 10 officers. Based on the original offer, the side letter probably indicated that if the MPOA opted to give up some or all of their negotiated pay rises in 2011 and 2012 the city would be able to hire back six officers. The original proposal was for officers to also give up a $1,000 a year uniform allowance plus pay more into their retirement. That would have avoided the 12 layoffs that took place.
The MPOA and city have a binding contract. The only way it could have been altered was if the MPOA wished to do so. The city went ahead with layoffs since they do not have the funds to keep all of the police officers and provide them with pay raises for the next two years plus cover 100 percent of the retirement and uniform alliances.
The city’s strategy to deal with the need to finish bridging a $14 billion deficit was to give each bargaining group the option of giving up future pay raises with some retirement concession. If not, layoffs would occur to help reduce costs.
The decision rested with the bargaining groups and not the city since the contracts are legally binding.
“I’m disappointed that the membership didn’t get a chance to vote,” Pinkerton said.
Police Chief Dave Bricker has secured assurance from the city manager that staffing will not drop below 55 sworn officers.
If more than five officers retire in the coming months that they will be replaced.
The staffing strategy that Bricker implemented last month after 12 police officers were laid off takes into account the five retirements. Bricker has said it would be impossible to go below 55 officers and maintain the current street presence. The number of officers went from 72 to 60.
Bricker shuffled around officers to maintain what he called the department’s “core service” – patrol operations – at or near current levels.
The department continues to respond as they have in the past. Prior to Oct. 10, 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 – continue to have the same level of officers on the street.
The seventh sergeant works as relief to reduce overtime of supervisorial personnel.
The gang unit up until Oct. 10 had one sergeant and four officers while narcotics had one sergeant and five officers. That force of 12 was reduced and combined into a streets crime unit of one sergeant and three detectives.
Two of those detectives plan on retiring, two returned to patrol, one lost their job, and one was assigned to the school resource unit (Measure M position dedicated to gang intervention). He replaced the elementary school resource officer allowing that officer to be returned to patrol. This resulted in a significant decrease in proactive gang and drug enforcement, but is sufficient to investigate major cases and provide patrol and detectives with the necessary technical support.
Before Oct. 10 Manteca had a detective division with one sergeant and seven detectives. It was reduced down to one sergeant and four detectives.
This combined the fraud, forgery, auto theft, and burglary case loads that were assigned to different detectives and reduced that team by three. These detectives were 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 went from one sergeant and four officers down to two officers. The sergeant and two officers were reassigned to patrol.
That eliminated weekend traffic officers and significantly reduced proactive traffic enforcement and hit–and-run follow up investigations.
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