LAPD Tries to Lure Its Retirees Back to Work

The Los Angeles Police Department, facing a shrinking force, is trying to lure retirees back to work by offering to pay their salary plus their regular pension for up to a year.

“As you may be aware, the LAPD is currently facing a severe staffing shortage of sworn officers,” Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and Thom Brennan, the LAPD’s commanding officer in charge of personnel, wrote in a letter dated June 23.

“The Department is asking for the assistance of retired members of the LAPD to return for a period of up to one year,” Parks and Brennan wrote.

“Returning to the Department under this program will not affect your pension, and you will collect the salary. . . . in addition to your regular pension,” they wrote.

The letter indicates retirees would work inside divisions, performing administrative duties and other desk work that would keep them off the streets.

Struggling to deal with a high attrition rate, the LAPD has recently been forced to take dozens of officers from such jobs and put them on patrol.

“The retirees would be doing jobs that have been vacated. We need them,” said LAPD spokesman Lt. Horace Frank.

The Los Angeles police officers union said the letter was proof of significant problems facing the department.

“If the LAPD needs to do this as a quick fix to get officers doing key jobs, then they should definitely do it,” said Peter Repovich, a Police Protective League director. “But this just shows there are serious issues that need to be dealt with. Why are officers leaving and not being replaced? It’s about poor morale.”

Frank said the department recently began trying to hire retirees to work as background investigators to help with its hiring process.

He said that the chief’s letter reflected an expansion of that effort and that the department was seeking “creative ways” to increase its staffing.