Budget cuts hamper S.F. police watchdog
By: Tamara Barak Aparton
Examiner Staff Writer
February 23, 2009
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| The Office of Citizen Complaints, the main agency in The City that investigates grievances against police officers, could lose a staff attorney and an investigator to city budget cuts. (Cindy Chew/The Examiner) |
SAN FRANCISCO — Budget cuts to The City’s already-overburdened police watchdog group are threatening to drastically slow down misconduct investigations.
The Office of Citizen Complaints, the main agency in The City that investigates grievances against officers, could lose a staff attorney and an investigator to city budget cuts. The loss of the positions may lengthen the time it takes to resolve a case, and threatens to undermine improvements in handling the complaint backlog.
In 2007, the agency was the subject of a scathing audit by the Controller’s Office, which found that mismanagement and understaffing rendered it nearly ineffective in resolving complaints. Since then, a change of leadership and mediation program have breathed new life into the agency, advocates say.
To combat a citywide deficit, Mayor Gavin Newsom required all city departments to trim their budgets by 14.5 percent and to plan for an additional 14.5 percent “contingency” reduction. On Feb. 1, director Joyce Hicks eliminated three vacant positions from the Office of Citizen Complaints, which saved $330,000. The additional contingency cut represents a “bloodletting” within the $4.2 million budget, she said, that would require the agency to lay off a staff attorney and an investigator.
The cuts would leave 16 investigators, the minimum allowed by the City Charter. Each would handle an average of 23 cases at any given time. The average caseload in similar agencies is 16 probes per investigator, according to the City Controller’s report.
Potential investigation delays threaten to erode public trust in the agency, one advocate said.
“You’re really playing with public confidence,” said Abel Habtegeorgis, spokesman for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, which lobbies for fairness in police practices across the Bay Area. “Residents in the community already don’t have faith anything will get done when they lodge a complaint against a police officer.”
The delay for getting complaints resolved has improved since 2007, but is still imposing. About 60 percent of complaints are resolved in six months, while 75 percent are resolved in nine months, the maximum investigation limit the City Charter allows.
Officers under investigation are prohibited from transferring to other units and denied promotion. In the most serious cases, they are taken off the streets and assigned to desk duty.
Also detrimental, however, would be the loss of a staff attorney to manage the agency’s mediation program, which has a 92 percent officer participation rate — the highest in the country — said Police Commission President Theresa Sparks. While citizens and police can wait months or even years for a complaint to resolve through a formal hearing, mediation allows the officer and citizen making the complaint to hash out their issues in a neutral setting.
Kevin Martin of the San Francisco Police Officers Association said his organization has worked with the agency during the past year to bring the number of mediations from a handful to more than 100, improving efficiency and saving money.
“Compromising that program would have a devastating effect on all parties involved — the police, the OCC and, most importantly, the community,” Martin said.
Trying times for Office of Citizen Complaints
1,021 Number of complaints against San Francisco police in 2008
71 Cases mediated in 2008
92 Percent of eligible officer that agree to mediate their cases
4 Current number of attorneys with the agency
2 Attorneys assigned to try cases before Police Commission
2 Attorneys to manage mediations, policy, outreach
1 Attorney on chopping block
1 Investigator on chopping block
3 Positions already cut
Source: Office of Citizen Complaints, Controller’s Office
