Months of excessive overtime, a lack of resources and a basic
lack of manpower at the Hollister Police Department has finally
taken its toll and the harsh conditions are beginning to drive cops
out of the department, according to the police chief.
Hollister – Months of excessive overtime, a lack of resources and a basic lack of manpower at the Hollister Police Department has finally taken its toll and the harsh conditions are beginning to drive cops out of the department, according to the police chief.
The police department, which currently has 28 sworn officers on staff, is operating at below 50 percent of the state Peace Officer Standards and Training organization’s recommended ratio of 1.5 officers per 1,000 people. The department is budgeted for 32 sworn officers but has four vacancies because of officers retiring and resigning, said Police Chief Jeff Miller. The administration has begun recruiting for more officers, but it could be months before the positions are filled, he said.
In the meantime, the department has increased the officers’ shifts from 10 to 12 hour-blocks to get through, Miller said.
“For different officers (the conditions) have different effects,” he said. “For some its the inability to get days off. For others it’s the inability to follow up on cases and do more in the field.”
Tom Keylon, who began his law enforcement career with the Hollister Police Department almost 14 years ago, recently decided to leave the department, along with another Hollister officer, and go to the San Benito County Sheriff’s Department because of the combination of long hours, overtime and a depleted budget.
Keylon said he’s seen a lot of bad times at the department, but this is the worst he’s ever seen it and he fears for the overall safety of the community.
“I lived there for years but recently bought a house in Los Banos. If I was to live there now I would be real concerned,” he said. “This is an issue the community needs to be aware of. If they don’t need a cop they never know, but there will come a day when they’re going to need somebody and there’s not going to anybody there.”
Besides the inability to accomplish as much as he would have liked during his shifts because there weren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done, Keylon said the lack of opportunity for advancement at the department also influenced his decision to leave.
“I didn’t want to leave the department after so much time, but I felt like I was just spinning my wheels here,” he said.
Keylon said the budget and staffing problems have been going on for years and were something the administration should have looked into five to 10 years ago instead of being caught off-guard now with no money, no resources and no people.
“It worries me that in the near future, if we lose more officers, I don’t know how the department’s going to function,” he said. “I guess that’s why I’m not the chief of police, but as an officer looking in, it’s like, ‘What are we going to do now?'”
The department’s staffing levels have never been up to par with the statewide standards, but the current state of affairs shouldn’t last forever, Miller said.
The administration has been working on recruiting officers, and Miller said he hopes to have the four vacancies filled as soon as possible.
“It’s a very high priority to fill those vacancies. But I’m not going to hire anyone off the street just to put a warm body out there,” he said. “Some of the overtime and conditions will change once we get those vacancies filled.”
Hollister City Councilman Robert Scattini didn’t have an answer to the department’s problems because the city doesn’t have enough money to staff it adequately.
“We need to pull ourselves out and it’s going to take time, that’s just the way it is,” Scattini said. “It’s got to get better, but it’s not going to get better overnight. Hopefully as soon as we get the moratorium lifted we can generate some income and it will get better.”
With a growing population and a dwindling police force, Keylon said emergency response times that used to be about a minute and a half now can take up to a half an hour because there’s not enough people to service the amount of calls.
And even with four more officers on the street, he doesn’t see things getting better any time soon.
“It’s one of those things where there’s no light at the end of the tunnel with the way the city’s finances are going,” he said.
Erin Musgrave covers public safety for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
