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LBReport.com

In Depth / Amnesia File

Police Chief McDonnell Hopes For Sizable Replenishment Police Academy Class in Oct. 2011

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(August 8, 2011) -- LBReport.com provides below a transcript of the salient portion of a mid-November 2010 briefing for media outlets held by LB Police Chief Jim McDonnell during which he responded to a question about what he hoped to see in the FY12 budget.

At the November 15, 2010 news briefing, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said LBPD was losing about forty to fifty officers per year due to normal retirements/attrition, and he hopes for a sizable replenishment Police Academy Class in Oct. 2011.

"[F]or us to be able to replenish some of those bodies, we need to run an academy. We're looking at options as a lateral academy. There's been some optimism for a lateral academy here because experiences in the past have not always been that positive...The ideal would be to have a full regular recruit academy and my goal is to be able to work with the city departments, and the city manager, to be able to come up with an agreement to start a new police academy October 1 of 2011...but as soon as we can possibly do that which would be October 1, my hope is that we can start gearing up to that over the summer months with what we have in house to be able to get us to a position where we could kick of an academy of considerable size to be able to start looking at replenishing some of those numbers," Chief McDonnell said [extended transcript and background below].


Nov. 15, 2010

One intervening change since Chief McDonnell's Nov. 2010 remarks: fewer officers retired in 2011 than management expected. However, as previously reported by [and seen live and now on-demand on] LBReport.com, on Aug. 2, 2011 Mayor Foster and City Manager West released their proposed a FY12 budget for City Council consideration would fund but doesn't envision conducting a replenishment police academy class in FY12. Mayor Foster and City Management have proposed that the Council let police levels taxpayers decline by expected attrition by 31 sworn officers during FY12 (Oct. 2011-Sept. 2012).

LBPD total officers [cited by Chief McDonnell below] include roughly 60 officers contracted/funded by the Port/LGB/LBCC/LBUSD/LB Transit) which aren't available for routine citywide deployment and aren't funded by the Council-budgeted General Fund.

Roughly nine months ago during a Nov. 15, 2011 media briefing, Chief McDonnell responded to a question by then-PressTelegram.com reporter Paul Eakins seeking general comments on the status of budget/staffing issues. The Chief replied with specifics, below:

Chief McDonnell: ...This year as best we could, we wanted to be good partners with the rest of the city, and we want to continue to do that, but we get at a point now where we're at 867 [sworn officers] in the budget now [884 minus 17 recruits eliminated by not funding FY11 replenishment police academy class, using that money to layoffs of officers currently above budgeted level] and we anticipate losing 40-50 a year sworn officers for general attrition, just people ready to retire.

And so for us to be able to replenish some of those bodies, we need to run an academy. We're looking at options as a lateral academy. There's been some optimism for a lateral academy here because experiences in the past have not always been that positive, but we're in a different place where some organizations around the state are laying off good people and in large numbers and we may be able to take advantage of that.

The ideal would be to have a full regular recruit academy and my goal is to be able to work with the city departments, and the city manager, to be able to come up with an agreement to start a new police academy October 1 of 2011...but as soon as we can possibly do that which would be October 1, my hope is that we can start gearing up to that over the summer months with what we have in house to be able to get us to a position where we could kick of an academy of considerable size to be able to start looking at replenishing some of those numbers.

[Discusses multiple factors in hiring process; background investigations; test-taking and attrition in the academy]

...In an ideal sense, it would be nice to say for public safety to start with, and maybe beyond that eventually, to be able to have a planned succession strategy, where we know, we anticipate and we can pretty safely say we will lose those 40 to 50 [officers] every year, to have an agreement so there'd be built in every budget is a new academy to be able to replenish at least the attrition and then if we have an opportunity based on budget to be able to build the department, then we start looking at doing that by hiring additional people on top of the attrition number...

...[O]ur people right now are stretched very thin, so when we have [cites example of a "Critical Mass" bicycle ride] or some kind of a major event, we pull people from the rest of the city which is not in any way something we want to do. We want to be able to have beat integrity so that the officers assigned to beats stay on those beats and provide service to the people as well as being proactive...

Immediate past Police Chief Anthony Batts had called publicly for increased police levels before leaving to head the Oakland Police Department.

LB taxpayers currently receive a budgeted police level for citywide sworn officers (not including Port/LGB/LBCC/LBUSD paid-contracted officers) thinner than when Mayor Beverly O'Neill took office. The LB City Council has balanced several recent spending budgets by "proportional reductions" that don't spare/prioritize police/fire spending...and LB taxpayers currently receive a police level roughly equivalent to Los Angeles cutting LAPD's officer level by over 25%.

For several years, the City of Long Beach, with Council majority voted approval, has declined to conduct replenishment police academy classes that would normally replace officers exiting due to retirement or other exits).

In recent years, LB's crime levels have dropped citywide, leaving crime concentrated in certain areas. In 2010 -- during which crime (and murders) declined citywide -- over half of LB's murders took place in part of the 1st and 6th Council districts. X's below indicate 2010; O's indicate 2011 murders through July. The 6th and 1st districts collectively accounted for over half of all 2010 Long Beach murders.


1st district Councilman Robert Garcia was chosen by Mayor Foster to chair the Council's Public Safety Committee.

6th district Councilman Dee Andrews recently announced his intention to seek a second Council term of office.

The Mayor/Management proposed FY12 budget includes the following:

Eliminate four sworn positions in the Homeland Security Section. The administrative function will be transferred to the Patrol Division and training function re-assigned to Academy/Training Division. $(579,884) (4.00 sworn)

Reduce Critical Incident Management by two sworn positions. Responsibilities include management of large-scale events, which will be decentralized and re-assigned to the respective Patrol Division Lieutenant. (348,945) (2.00 sworn)

Eliminate a total of 14 Police Officer positions from the Patrol Divisions (North, South, East, West). (1,654,968) (14.00 sworn)

Downsize Vice Day Crew by one sworn position assigned to process business related permits. Caseload will be redistributed among remaining 13 personnel in the section. (133,678) (1.00 sworn)

Eliminate Auto Theft Detail Sergeant position. Supervisory responsibilities will be transferred to another Sergeant and caseloads distributed to the remaining 5 sworn employees. (170,063) (1.00 sworn)

Downsize the Gang Enforcement Field Team by one civilian position and three sworn positions. Supervisorial responsibility will be transferred to another Sergeant within the division and caseloads redistributed to the remaining 42 officers. (517,924) (3.00 sworn) (1.00 civilian)

Downsize the Violent Crimes Detail by two sworn positions. Caseloads will be distributed to the remaining 10 sworn personnel within the unit. (271,867) (2.00 sworn)

Eliminate the Juvenile-Car (J-Car) Unit, which is not funded by the LBUSD contract. Patrol units will cover J-Car responsibilities as needed. Eliminates a Sergeant position and two Police Officer positions. (433,235) (3.00 sworn)

Eliminate the Communications Center Coordinator position. The function will be re-assigned to other personnel. ($132,718) (1.00 civilian)

Eliminate two sworn positions and an unfilled Intelligence Analyst position in the Office of Counter Terrorism. A consultant already provides the function of this Intelligence Analyst position. (290,412) (2.00 sworn) (1.00 civilian)

Eliminate two Special Services Officer III positions, one in the Court Bailiffs Section and one in the Detention Transport Unit. Staff from other unit will be reassigned or backfill the post using overtime as needed. (155,504) (2.00 civilian)

Eliminate two vacant Administrative Analyst II positions in the Office of the Chief of Police and in Training Administration. Other staff in the respective bureau and division are already performing the function. (201,002) (2.00 civilian)

Eliminate a Clerk Supervisor position and three Special Services Officer III positions in the Background Investigations Section of the Training Division. Responsibilities will be backfilled by other staff on special detail basis. (292,629) (4.00 civilian)

Eliminate seven Clerk Typist III positions, a Senior Records Clerk position, and a Police Services Specialist position from various divisions. The department will restructure to maximize remaining resources. (566,864) (9.00 civilian)

Eliminate three Clerk Supervisor positions in the Records and Information Management Division. Positions were vacant and had been defunded. (74,297) (3.00 civilian)

Reallocate a portion of a Motor Officer position from Prop H to the General Fund. (65,375) (0.52 sworn)

Reduce budgeted expenditure for overtime by approximately 15%, which may result in delays in report taking, investigations, and the completion of case work. (1,332,524)


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