Manteca citizens and business owners are being asked to provide their input on what they believe would constitute adequate police staffing.

A Community Focus Group gathering on Wednesday, July 23, from 8 to 9:30 a.m. at the Manteca Transit Center, 220 Moffat Blvd., will help shape the 20-year temporary Measure Q sales tax spending plan in regards to Manteca Police Department staffing.

The last time the community was asked to give input on Manteca Police staffing was in 2010.

The City Council back then appointed a 15-member citizens committee to advise elected leaders on how to best address a multi-year projected general fund deficit pegged at $15 million due to the Great Recession triggered by the mortgage meltdown crisis.

Available money was the guiding factor.

At one point, the majority of the committee appeared leaning toward advocating gutting much of the parks and recreation staffing and paring back the street maintenance crews even more than city staff recommended.

It was when then Police Chief Dave Bricker shared his perspective.

Bricker made it clear his No. 1 priority was maximizing public safety.

And as much as he wanted to have as many police officers as possible, he noted street maintenance as well as parks and recreation programs also played a key role in public safety.

Properly maintained streets that were adequately illuminated at night helped reduce accidents and keep the public safe.

Recreation programs such as organized sports, basketball courts, and organized programs are proven ways to help reduce delinquency amount youth and small scale criminal activity among young adults.

Bricker stressed a balance needed to be struck as severely crippling or eliminating funding for other city functions would make the job of police officers substantially more difficult and dilute the quality of living in Manteca.

The citizens’ committee ended up balancing all municipal needs in their budget cut recommendations.

And it was predicated on making sure the city, when all was said and done, had police staffing levels based on verified needs and not perceived needs.

The main question will be the same as in 2010 at the July 23 community forum: What level of police staffing does Manteca really need?

Public safety staffing — specifically frontline police and firefighters along with necessary support staff — is the biggest personnel expense in any municipal budget.

Police and fire related costs overall account for roughly 62 cents of every general fund dollar spent.

The city is looking for establishing a measuring stick on officer staffing that reflects a reoccurring annual overall cost in excess of $250,000 a position.

The goal is to help the city maximize the effective expenditure of the temporary 20-year three-fourths of a cent Measure Q sales tax.

The Rule of 60

For years, much of the talk about police staffing has centered around one officer per 1,000 residents.

There is no study that backs that up as a reasonable bench mark. And there is no organization, whether its law enforcement associations or the FBI that recommends the 1 per 1,000 staffing.

Based on the 1 per 1,000 staffing assertion, Manteca should have 95 officers on the job in the next fiscal year and not 83.

Police Chief Stephen Schluer in budget workshops has referenced the “Rule of 60”  that he would like to use to help determine staffing needs.

It involves three key points:

*About 60% of a department’s officers should be assigned to patrol duties.

*No more than 60% of patrol officers’ time should be spent responding to calls. The balance of their time would be involved in community and proactive policing and being available to respond to emergencies.

*Calls for service that are not priority one (life in danger, felony crime in progress) shouldn’t take more than 60 minutes, on average, to handle.

The “Rule of 60” was developed after extensive research by the ICMA Center for Public Safety Management

The study was prompted by a question many city leaders wrestle with: How many police officers does a department actually need? 

It’s a fair question, especially when budgets are tight or when police chiefs push for more staffing without much data to back it up.

The ICMA Center for Public Safety Management studied 62 police departments across the U.S. to better understand staffing needs.

What they found is that many common ways to decide how many officers are needed, like looking at crime rates, population size, or budget limits, wasn’t cutting it.

The approaches were often outdated, overly simple, or don’t reflect the real workload officers face.

Instead, CPSM recommends a smarter method: use actual call data to see when and where officers are really needed.

They dig into things like how many calls come in, how long officers spend on each call, and how many officers are available at different times of the day and week. This kind of analysis paints a much clearer picture of staffing needs.

Another key takeaway from their research regarding police staffing: It’s not really about how much crime there is.

Surprisingly, crime rates and response times didn’t have much to do with how departments were staffed. 

What did matter was the number of 911 calls and how busy things got during peak times such as weekends and in the summer.

In the end, the report encourages local leaders to stop guessing and start measuring. 

With the right data, they can make better decisions about staffing, improve efficiency, and keep communities safe. It’s about using resources wisely and making sure officers are available when the public really needs them; in emergencies.

The “correct” staffing answer for Manteca would allow it to better allocate overall municipal funding resources when it comes to public safety.

A typical officer between salary, workmen’s compensation, health benefits, retirement, and such costs an average of $250,000.

The focus group discussion is being led Anthony Boger and Jackie Gomez-Whiteley of the Meliora consulting firm.

Light refreshments will be served.

Those planning on attending are being sked to email Lt. Joshua Gutierrez at jgutierrez@manteca.gov

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com