Measure B may have been approved, but lawsuits mean its future is uncharted. Despite the challenges, San José Mayor Chuck Reed is charting his plans for the City’s future, which includes more police on the streets.
The hiring and reassigning of officers isn’t straightforward. In an opinion article published in the Mercury News, Reed outlined a strategy that calls shifting some responsibilities from sworn officers to civilians, and others from officers to private firms.
According to the City’s Auditor, 60 positions currently being staffed by officers could be effectively handled by a civilian staff, allowing the higher-salaried officers to return to patrol and other law enforcement activities. Similarly, 25 officers are used for background checks, a job that could be assigned to an investigation firm. There, non-sworn officers could screen recruits to the City’s police force.
What Reed has specifically called to avoid is a push for across-the-board pay increases to offset 10 percent concessions from the police officers themselves. Such a move, he says, would result in a $21 million increase to the human resources cost – resulting in about 100 fewer officers.
Read the full story at the Mercury News.