Mayor Ben Cantu used the State of the City pulpit Tuesday morning to make it clear he personally wants to see three more police officers on Manteca’s streets in 2020.
At the same time he wants the police department’s traffic enforcement unit to more than double to seven dedicated officers “to reinstate respect for pedestrians and other.”
Cantu also vowed that Manteca in the fairly near future will secure police staffing equal to one officer per 1,000 residents. Based on the city’s estimated population a year ago, that translates into 81 officers. Manteca currently has 74 officers with 72 positions filled and one person in the officer training program.
“Ensuring public safety is the primary focus (for the city existing),” Cantu told the gathering of 200 people at the Manteca Chamber of Commerce sponsored event at the Transit Center.
To that end he wants to see future fire stations built ahead of growth so they are in place when houses are built and “not 10 years later.”
Cantu did not elaborate how the city would pay for new officers, firefighters to staff new fire stations, or pay for equipment. He has said that he personally is going through the books to see what money is available.
An entry level police officer’s base salary and benefits — excluding equipment and non-sworn office support — is $130,000. That is a reoccurring cost that increases as officers move up in step pay and receive negotiated raises.
Three new officers in the next budget cycle would cost a minimum of $390,000. If the state Department of Finance pegs the city’s population as of Jan. 1, 2019 as 84,000 which is highly likely, that would mean the city would need 10 more officers or spend a minimum of $1.3 million more a year on an ongoing basis to get staffing level to Cantu’s goal of one officer per 1,000 residents.
At the same time the city is juggling other pressing issues such as shortfalls in California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) payments, street work issues, staffing shortfalls in public works that is delaying capital improvement projects as well as created a huge backlog in street and sidewalk maintenance issues, and a host of other competing needs ranging from major repairs at the Manteca Senior Center that aren’t being addressed to replacing aging fire engines.
And while the city has healthy reserves, cutting into them would go against the clarion call Cantu made in his last six campaigns to make sure Manteca has adequate funding to weather recessions. Over the years the mayor has repeatedly said that when he was employed 30 years with the city as a planner the city repeatedly when through boom and bust cycles having to lay off workers and cut back on service levels because they hadn’t set aside adequate funds in reserve accounts to cover revenue shortfalls.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
