Pay Hike Is Council Job

Relations between the San Diego Police Officers Assn. and the city often have been strained in recent years, and as the initiative for a sizable police pay raise moves toward the ballot, tensions are likely to increase again.

If passed, the measure would give officers here an adjustment of up to 17%, bringing their salaries up to the level of those paid by the California Highway Patrol and other big-city police departments in the state. That would cost the city about $10 million for the first year, it is estimated. City Atty. John Witt has raised some legal questions about the initiative, but because the POA succeeded in getting 73,000 signatures on its initiative petitions, the City Council is not likely to try to keep the issue off the ballot.

This is another one of those cases like Proposition A (the land-use measure voters approved in November), in which the citizenry is being asked to take over one piece of the City Council’s job--in this case to set salaries for a group of public employees--without regard to the overall needs of the city. As with Proposition A, the sentiment behind the initiative is laudable, but this is not the way to run a government.

Being a police officer is a tough job, and police morale is important to the entire city. Few would dispute that five-year members of the force deserve higher salaries than the $29,000 they now receive. Most of the City Council members seem to understand that in order to keep experienced officers, something must be done to improve the wage and benefits package for the department’s veterans.

But the authority to establish pay scales for all city workers should be retained by the council, the board elected to set city policy. The police pay initiative asks voters to look through a tunnel and make a decision on one particular aspect of the city budget without regard to other competing needs. If the measure passes, $10 million will have to be trimmed elsewhere in the city budget.

Some of those trims inevitably would come from the Police Department itself. Last year, the council moved to increase the ratio of police officers to city residents, establishing a goal of 2-per-1,000. To reach that ratio over the next seven years will cost the city about $75 million. It is unrealistic to think that this major expansion of the police force can take place if the police pay increase is approved by the voters.

Unless City Atty. Witt comes forward with some compelling legal reasons for keeping the initiative off the ballot, the council has little choice but to certify it for the June 3 election. But at the same time, it should come out strongly in opposition to its approval and, perhaps, should even put a counter measure on the ballot reaffirming the authority of the council to set all city salaries.