Davis’ Plan to Add Police Opposed by Key Groups

Several major law enforcement organizations representing California’s police, sheriffs and district attorneys have joined to oppose Gov. Gray Davis’ inauguration week pledge to put 700 more officers on the streets.

The law enforcement leaders complained in a letter to the governor that his plan would pay for the new officers by retooling an existing public safety program they already consider effective.

They also said that the money is inadequate for most departments to hire new officers and that studies show the additional police will not reduce crime unless more prosecutors and jailers are added too.

“We think the governor’s heart is in the right place,” said San Luis Obispo Police Chief Jim Gardner, president of the California Police Chiefs Assn. “The changes we see being proposed are detrimental overall to law enforcement.”

Davis responded at a news conference Thursday with a terse reiteration of his original plan.

“Sacramento is full of people who complain,” the governor said. “I am a doer, not a whiner. I want to encourage local government to put more police on the street.”

Davis’ plan, which he outlined in his State of the State address and his first budget proposal last month, would redesign the COPS program--Citizens’ Option for Public Safety.

The 3-year-old program now directs $100 million in state funds each year to local police, sheriffs and prosecutors. It was designed by law enforcement groups and promoted by former Gov. Pete Wilson to fight crime by paying for new officers, underwriting overtime or purchasing new equipment.

The money was apportioned with $75 million a year going to police departments and $12.5 million each for county district attorneys and sheriffs, who operate the local jails.

The original COPS legislation was slated to expire next year. Davis proposed that the program be continued permanently. But he also added new restrictions that would encourage the money to be spent on hiring new patrol officers.

Davis wants any other use of the funds, such as for overtime pay or the purchase of equipment, to be matched by money from local jurisdictions.

“I will ask you, my colleagues in the Legislature, to redesign the program to encourage local government to use these funds to hire up to 700 new police officers to maintain safety on our streets,” Davis said in his State of the State address.

Davis aides said the stipulation of 700 new officers is based on their assumption that local departments would spend about 70% of the program funds on new officers, creating 700 new positions with $100,000 each.

But law enforcement groups said that arithmetic will not work.

Gardner said the COPS money is already so widely distributed that many departments only get about $25,000, not enough for a new officer. In all, he estimates that 56% of the state’s police departments will not receive enough funding to hire a new officer.

The Davis proposal also drew complaints from sheriffs and district attorneys because the governor’s focus is on patrol officers. Organizations representing both groups fear that the governor’s proposal would eliminate the $25 million in annual COPS funding they now receive.

Experts testified in the Legislature this week that the current distribution is a result of studies showing that each new officer will generate 38 felony arrests and 150 misdemeanor arrests per year--adding more work for prosecutors and jailers.

In a recent letter to lawmakers, Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said his office used its $3.6 million from the COPS program to hire 20 prosecutors for its Hardcore Gang Division.

“While the deputy district attorneys in our Hardcore Gang Division represent only 4% of the prosecutors in our office, they conduct 40% of the murder trials in Los Angeles County,” Garcetti wrote. “In 1998, our Hardcore Gang Division amassed a 92% conviction rate.”

Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante said he was uncertain whether the governor would continue funding for sheriffs and county prosecutors. And this week, a spokesman for the governor’s Department of Finance told a legislative subcommittee that “nothing is finalized at this point.”

Some lawmakers interpreted the mixed signals from the governor’s office as an indication that Davis is backing away from his proposal under pressure from the law enforcement community. Bustamante denied any change in posture.

Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, complained that the governor’s plan for 700 new police officers was designed more for political speeches than for good government policy.

“We get trapped here in Sacramento by thinking we need to come up with [new] programs because then we get credit for the programs,” said Assemblyman George Runner Jr. (R-Lancaster), a former mayor who spoke against the Davis plan at a recent legislative hearing.

“I think, unfortunately, this is truly driven by politics and not by good policy,” he added.

Law enforcement leaders said many departments believe that they can achieve the goal of putting more police on the streets by purchasing new equipment, not new personnel. They said computers, for example, can reduce the amount of time patrol officers are required to spend on routine paperwork.

President Clinton’s 1994 program to put 100,000 more police on the streets is substantially similar to the Davis proposal. But the federal program is measured by the hours of patrol time a department provides, not necessarily the creation of new positions.

To date, federal officials said the president’s $5.3-billion program has put 92,000 more police on the nation’s streets. But only 59,000 of those positions are new hires.

The rest of the calculation represents increased patrol time for officers through overtime pay, reassignments or office efficiencies like computerization.