Oceanside Budget Gives Police $18.7-Million, 15-Gun Salute

One year ago, the Oceanside Police Department and City Hall were engaged in bitter fighting over wages. But enmity turned to amity Wednesday night when the City Council, with accolades from police officials, approved a budget that will spend $18.7 million to strengthen the city’s police force.

“The significant increase in the budget and staffing for the Police Department certainly is appreciated,” said Police Chief Lee Drummond, “but, more importantly, it shows the council is willing to give us the resources we need.”

The $160.5-million budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 includes the $18.7-million allocation for the police, and the largest staff increase of any city department. The money will provide for 28 new staff positions in the Police Department, 15 of them sworn officers. The department now has 136 sworn officers.

Response Time Reduction

Beefing up the number of officers on patrol will help considerably to reduce the amount of time it takes police to respond to calls--a major criticism of the department in the past, said Capt. Michael Shirley.

“I think it’s tremendous what the city council has done to help out,” he said.

At this time last year, the department was locked in battle with the city over the issue of pay. The bitter negotiations were punctuated by bouts of “blue flu” among the officers, who staged two sickouts in one month to make their point.

Though a compromise was eventually reached with an 18% pay raise package, a report was issued that fall that criticized the police force as lacking manpower, direction and leadership. The report, the result of a three-month internal audit by an independent consulting firm paid by the city, concluded that the department had come to a virtual standstill because there were not enough officers to answer the calls for service.

At that time, there were fewer than 1.5 officers for every 1,000 people in Oceanside, the county’s third-largest city. It sometimes took police more than 10 minutes to respond to urgent calls, the report says. The audit also showed that many officers were bitter over what they perceived as a lack of support from City Hall.

A report released by the San Diego Assn. of Governments in February showed an 18% increase in crime in Oceanside during 1988. The figures showed the rate to be 75.3 reported crimes per 1,000 people, contrasted with 64 per 1,000 the year before.

Even with the increase, Oceanside’s crime rate was only slightly higher than the average rate for the county, which was 73.8 per 1,000.

“But that doesn’t mean we’re not concerned,” said Larry Bauman, the city’s public information officer. The increased budget for the Police Department is “just an example of what we’re trying to do about it.”

Bauman acknowledged that the relationship between the police and city had been strained. “It has been tense in the past, but I think it’s improving, especially with the addition of the new chief,” he said.

Drummond, who joined the department in January, has developed three specific objectives for the coming year: to reduce major crime throughout the city, to enhance the professional image of the department and to improve the quality of police service. He described his program in an interview Wednesday as “a philosophy of responsibility and accountability at all levels of the department.”

The department had 115 sworn officers a year ago, some of whom had been pulled from patrol duty to work as dispatchers or fill other slots. Seventeen patrol officers were hired in the wake of the internal audit--the addition of 15 more officers as allowed by the budget will finally put the department “in a strong position” to meet the needs of the community, according to Shirley.

“It will be several months before we actually realize the benefits of that approval,” he said, noting that recruiting qualified applicants tends to be a slow, difficult process.

In addition to undergoing background checks, polygraph tests and psychological evaluations, new recruits must complete a rigorous 18-week training course.

Shirley said the department is hoping to attract a number of “lateral recruits”--officers who transfer from other police agencies--because they are already trained and can start work sooner.