IAPE Evidence Blog

San Joaquin Media Group, recordnet.com
BYLINE: Chris­t­ian Burkin, Record Staff Writer
Link to Article

Stock­ton, CA

Prop­erty clerk Stan­ley Dil­lard, left, trains Stock­ton police Offi­cer Ben Lee in his job Thurs­day. CLIFFORD OTO/The Record

STOCKTON — The worst-case sce­nario for next year’s police bud­get calls for lay­ing off 100 civil­ian employ­ees, but not for the elim­i­na­tion of all those positions.

Instead, many of those civil­ian jobs are to be assumed by police offi­cers. It’s an arrange­ment Chief Blair Ulring acknowl­edged as inef­fi­cient — offi­cers are paid more than civil­ians — but one he has to adopt to main­tain the ranks of the sworn.

All but two of 13 civil­ian employ­ees in the evidence-identification sec­tion are to be replaced by police, as are all three civil­ians in the prop­erty room, where con­fis­cated firearms and drugs are secured.

Those to be replaced are train­ing their replacements.

At the Police Depart­ment on Thurs­day, Gina Smith, an evi­dence tech­ni­cian for nine years, was train­ing Offi­cer Ken­neth Webb, recently trans­ferred from patrol’s grave­yard shift. Smith said it was dif­fi­cult to face unem­ploy­ment, let alone train your replace­ment, but that she and her col­leagues were willing.

“You gotta do what you gotta do,” she said.

Smith said that after years of bud­get cuts and con­ces­sions by her union, the Stock­ton City Employ­ees Asso­ci­a­tion, she con­sid­ers the loss of her job likely, if not inevitable.

“If it doesn’t hap­pen this year, maybe next year,” she said.

Linda Engrav-Clarke, the prop­erty room’s super­vi­sor, was con­cerned the tran­si­tion, if it occurs, won’t be smooth. She said offi­cers rotat­ing in from patrol will have to appear in court to sup­port their arrests, at least for the first few months. If there’s an emer­gency, and offi­cers are called away, the offices will shut down.

Engrav-Clarke said that given the bud­get con­straints, Chief Ulring’s deci­sion makes sense.

“I under­stand an offi­cer can be trained in there to do the basics, and then get pulled to the street to do things I can’t do,” she said.

That is pre­cisely the sce­nario Ulring cites as the rea­son for the reas­sign­ment: If there were a major emer­gency, or a sud­den need for backup, he still would have offi­cers on hand.

“The best course of action is to have sworn per­son­nel that can be two-faceted,” he said. “It’s try­ing to take what’s inef­fi­cient and make an effi­ciency out of it.”

Offi­cer Steve Leone­sio, pres­i­dent of the Stock­ton Police Offi­cers Asso­ci­a­tion, said the move was a kind of “shell game.”

“They’re tak­ing offi­cers off the streets, and they can’t respond to crimes,” he said.

Leone­sio said the offi­cers would be under-trained for the jobs they were assum­ing, par­tic­u­larly in evi­dence, and that could threaten cases involv­ing them. “The work prod­uct will be inad­e­quate because of inad­e­quate train­ing,” he said.

The Police Depart­ment called for vol­un­teers for reas­sign­ment in late April. Ulring said there weren’t enough vol­un­teers, so the most junior offi­cers on each shift were reas­signed. That didn’t go over well.

“We had a mixed response,” Ulring said. “Some peo­ple didn’t sign on for this kind of work.”

Ulring has long said that con­tin­ued cuts to the Police Depart­ment are dan­ger­ous, but he must offer a plan for the bud­get he is given. The cur­rent plan, to elim­i­nate as many as 16 police offi­cer posi­tions, would limit the Police Department’s response to in-progress crimes and life-threatening situations.

“I couldn’t rec­om­mend any stronger that we not do this,” he said.

The city must either cut ben­e­fits or cut jobs, and nego­ti­a­tions with the police union have so far not pro­duced an agree­ment for next year. The police union last week went pub­lic with an offer of con­ces­sions in return for a con­tract exten­sion and a promise from the city not to declare bank­ruptcy. The city and the police union are still negotiating.

Con­ces­sions last year by the Stock­ton City Employ­ees Asso­ci­a­tion, the city’s largest employee group, returned about $1.44 mil­lion to the gen­eral fund. In April, the asso­ci­a­tion declined to reopen its con­tract to fur­ther negotiation.

Joe Rose, an attor­ney for the asso­ci­a­tion, said the plan to replace civil­ian Police Depart­ment employ­ees with police offi­cers rein­forces a sus­pi­cion that con­ces­sions by the SCEA will be used to save police jobs.

“We’re fairly con­fi­dent that the con­ces­sions by our peo­ple will go to other bar­gain­ing units,” he said. “They won’t give us the com­mit­ment we need to give us the con­fi­dence that we’re going to be sav­ing our own skins.”

Con­tact reporter Chris­t­ian Burkin at (209) 546‑8279 or cburkin@recordnet.com. Visit his blog at recordnet.com/burkinblog.

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