Modesto police chief believes city can fill vacant officer positions. Here’s why
Modesto Police Chief Brandon Gillespie predicted almost a year ago that by the time 2023 concluded, his department would have filled nearly all of its sworn officer positions.
That prediction will not come true, but Gillespie said in an interview that he remains optimistic he will have filled “a big chunk” of his department’s nearly two dozen vacant positions by mid-2024.
Gillespie said more officers will mean faster response times, more visibility in the community — which can deter criminal behavior — and more traffic enforcement.
He said he’s encouraged that fewer officers are leaving the department and hiring has picked up. He attributes a lot of that to a new labor agreement with the police union and a sales tax increase approved by voters.
The Police Department is allocated 211 sworn officers, from Gillespie to the newest officer, and has 23 vacancies. But Gillespie said the vacancies include eight positions that had been frozen as a cost-savings measure but which he now can fill.
In January, the department had 25 vacant officer positions in addition to the eight frozen ones, according to a city report from that time.
The Police Department — like other law enforcement agencies across the nation — has struggled in recent years to hire and keep officers because of the pandemic and the nationwide protests and demonstrations after the murder of George Floyd.
Gillespie said the City Council’s approval of a four-year labor agreement with the Modesto Police Officers Association in June and voters’ approval of Measure H, a 1% sales tax increase, have been big factors in the turnaround.
The MPOA agreement includes pay increases totaling 17%, as well as other pay enhancements.
City officials have said police officers’ compensation was 6.6% below the median of 10 comparable agencies, including Stockton, Sacramento and Tracy, and the new agreement brings their compensation to the median.
Measure H is expected to bring in more than $42 million annually to the city’s general fund budget, which primarily pays for public safety. Including Measure H, the general fund is about $226 million in the city’s current budget year, which started July 1.
The City Council also approved in February increasing the hiring bonuses for officers to as much as $25,000. Gillespie said that, too, has helped.
More opportunities for officers
Before Measure H, the city faced annual deficits to its general fund and closed the gap through such measures as freezing or eliminating vacant positions and delaying maintenance.
Gillespie said the tax increase tells officers Modesto is financially stable and offers plenty of opportunities.
Before Measure H, Modesto reduced staffing of its specialty units — such as traffic safety and gangs — as a cost-saving measure. Those reductions meant fewer opportunities for officers.
For instance, City Manager Joe Lopez has said the traffic safety unit had about 20 officers before the Great Recession of more than a decade ago. The unit now has four officers and a sergeant.
Gillespie said he is not yet at the point where he can start rebuilding the specialty units. He said his first priority is increasing the number of patrol officers.
He said that he has nearly 80 officers assigned to patrol and that ideally the number should be 90 to keep officers’ workload manageable and to lower response times.
Gillespie said once the number of patrol officers is consistently in the mid-80s, he will look at increasing specialty unit staffing while also adding patrol officers. His goal is to be in that position by midyear, he said.
He said he’d like to increase the traffic safety unit from four to at least six officers — and in the best of circumstances to eight. Gillespie also wants to add more officers to the gang unit and crime reduction team but said it was too soon to say by how many.
Gillespie has been with the department for 22 years and rose through the ranks before being named chief in August 2021. He said the top complaints he hears from residents are about homelessness and traffic. Modesto consistently ranks among the worst cities of its size for traffic collisions, including fatalities, based on annual rankings from the California Office of Traffic Safety.
Twenty people, including pedestrians and bicyclists, have died in traffic accidents in Modesto this year, while there have been six homicides, Gillespie said.
Fewer officers are leaving
The chief said 42 police officers left the department from November 2021 through November 2022. That included 30 voluntary resignations, seven retirements, three disability retirements and two separations.
The reasons for a voluntary resignation include a recruit resigning while still in the police academy, a new officer quitting before completing his field training and veteran officers going to work for other agencies or leaving law enforcement.
Gillespie said 16 officers left the department from November 2022 through this November. That included 12 voluntary resignations, three retirements and one officer who failed to complete his field training. Gillespie said the department hired 29 new officers during the same time period.
Gillespie also is making it faster for the department to hire new officers.
In past years, recruits in a police academy were included among the department’s allocation of sworn officers, even though they were not yet officers.
But the department has created 15 police officer recruit positions. These are non-sworn positions so they don’t count against the department’s allocation of sworn positions. The recruits become sworn officers after completing their academy training.
So when the department learns about officers who will be retiring or leaving the department within a few months, it can get a jump on training their potential replacements and not have to wait until the officers have left.
Police officers are expensive and the competition among cities for them is keen. The California State Controller’s government compensation website provides some detail on how much officers cost in 2022.
It shows 102 Modesto officers earned at least $100,000 in total wages, with 31 of them earning at least $150,000. The wages include the officers’ regular pay, overtime and incentive pay. It does not include the cost of their pensions and other benefits.
Fewer applications for police jobs
And fewer people are interested in law enforcement careers. For instance, 2,200 people applied to become a Modesto officer in 2015, according to the city. That number was 557 in 2022, and 657 have applied this year.
The Police Department was allocated 287 police officers in 2008, but in recent years has relied more on its civilian employees to take on tasks that don’t require an officer.
The department created the Community Health and Assistance Team — outreach specialists who work with homeless people — in spring 2021 and created its park ranger program about a year later. Both programs started with allocations of four positions, and both now are allocated a dozen.
Asked whether he will at some point seek to increase the department’s allocation of 211 sworn officers, Gillespie said staffing will be based on the number and nature of calls for service.
“There is a constant balancing act of trying to determine how many officers we need,” he said. “The litmus test is calls for service. Do we need police officers (to respond), or civilian employees?”
This story was originally published December 15, 2023 at 9:35 AM.
