How does city police budget break down? We asked the chief

Menifee City Council members tonight will consider adoption of the city staff's recommended budget for the upcoming fiscal year -- a budget in which 62 percent of the general fund expenditures are allocated to public safety.

Of the total projected City of Menifee expenditures of $34.7 million in 2017-18, $23.1 million is allocated for public safety. Of that amount, $17.2 million is budgeted for police protection through contract with the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. And that includes a proposed increase of $3.5 million for additional police staffing, which would be paid for through the increased sales tax revenue generated by Measure DD.

Determining the amount of money a city should spend on police protection is a challenge. Even comparisons to the public safety budgets of other cities can be problematic. In the June edition of its monthly newspaper, Menifee 24/7 incorrectly stated in an article on public safety that the City of Murrieta spends $12.3 million on police. Actually, that amount is only the line item for "police operations." If you add the line items for police administration and police support, the total is nearly $25 million.

The Sheriff's Department contract with the City of Menifee is listed as one total cost, including patrol service, community service and all support personnel and expenses. As reported here last week, the Sheriff's Department proposal for increased staffing for 2017-18 includes the following:

-- 4.1 sworn patrol officers, which breaks down to 20 additional patrol hours per day.
-- 1 dedicated sergeant
-- 2 dedicated motorcycle officers
-- 1 dedicated crime prevention officer
-- 4 dedicated community service officers
-- 1 dedicated office assistant

But what does that really mean? How many more actual "boots on the ground" will Menifee have if this proposal is approved tonight, and what will their roles be?

We asked those questions of Captain Brandon Ford of the Sheriff's Department, who serves as Menifee police chief, in a Q&A session this week. Here is that conversation:

24/7: How many boots on the ground would this increase mean? Your proposal calls for an increase of 4.1 sworn officers, which is an additional 20 patrol hours per day, correct?

Ford: The patrol division is allocated in hours per day. If you don’t count special teams -- which would be Community Services, Traffic and the Special Enforcement unit -- right now it’s 120 hours per day. If you divide that by 10-hour shifts, you come up with the number of shifts that are available throughout the day -- 12. Over three shifts, that is an average of four cops per shift. With the increase, they’re going up 20 hours per day in the patrol division. That means you get two more shifts a day. So I can add those two shifts anywhere I want. I run three watches per day: Day shift, swing shift and graveyard shift.

In addition to the patrol – hopefully, because none of this has been approved – we’re going from two motorcycle officers to four motorcycle officers. One of their primary missions is to reduce traffic collisions through traffic enforcement. But they are also 24/7 first responders, They are fully functioning, full-service police officers. They don’t normally handle calls for service, but they routinely respond as back-up for priority calls for service. The fact they’re on motorcycles allows them to get to the scene much quicker.

24/7: Was it the City that asked for two more motor officers or was that your recommendation? I don’t know if the pay is the same. Could they have gotten two more patrol officers instead?

Ford: Patrol hours are different than dedicated specialized functions, but the cost is very close to the same. They bill at a different rate, but at the end of the day, the cost is very close to the same.

24/7: My main question on that is, what is needed more -- additional patrol officers or additional motorcycle officers for traffic? Yes, obviously we’ve got collisions and people breaking traffic laws, but with all the break-ins to cars and residences and mail thefts and everything, wouldn’t the city want to have the maximum number of patrol officers rather than guys writing tickets?

Ford: Six people died in fatal traffic collisions last year. Where’s the priority for you? Preventing fatal traffic collisions or making sure somebody’s mail doesn’t get stolen?

24/7: I guess that’s a question each person has to ask himself.

Ford: Traffic-related problems are one of the most frequent complaints we get. In addition, we have a significant number of fatal and injury traffic collisions. Not only do they affect the health and welfare and safety of the community, but they also have a significant ripple effect out into the economy. The staffing recommendations we made are just part of a strategic plan that will grow the police department over time. So we’ve addressed a variety of different needs – some community service needs, some traffic safety needs, some patrol needs. But the resources are limited. So we tried to proportion out needs to meet the growth the best way possible.

24/7: Playing devil’s advocate, here’s what someone we talked to yesterday said to us. They’re looking at the numbers and our story last week and they’re saying, “Your headline that the proposal brings eight more police officers is misleading. We’re paying $3 million for two more patrol shifts and a bunch of guys writing tickets to make money for the city.”

Ford: When you get in the business of doing police service, crime also involves traffic infractions. Those infractions often result in not just congestion that ripples out into cost to the economy, but it also results in property loss, injuries and fatalities – all of which are a very high priority for the police department. Those guys don’t just write tickets. They are fully competent cops, and at any moment they can transition from ticket writing to responding to a bank robbery, or a burglary, and they do just that. They very frequently are the first officers on scene. Especially in a city like Menifee, where congestion is a problem, it’s very important to place a high priority on getting to the scene as quickly as possible. They are, in fact, part of the increase in the number of cops we’ll have on the street.

24/7: How about the dedicated sergeant? What does he do? Is that a guy who’s on the streets? Is he an administrator? What is that person doing?

Ford: The dedicated sergeant will be responsible for offering enhanced supervision to both the traffic unit and the community service unit. The philosophy is that through enhanced supervision and connection with city staff and community members, we will be able to allocate resources that meets the needs in a more effective way.

24/7: So that means they won’t deal with Perris or Canyon Lake – they are just focused on Menifee?

Ford: Exactly. Their 40-hour work week will be devoted strictly to Menifee. That’s what we’re offering – somebody whose attention is not divided by virtue of working out of the Perris station. We have a priority for community involvement in crime prevention, which is one of the things the dedicated crime prevention officer will be doing, in addition to working with the Homeless Task Force. By uniquely focusing entirely on Menifee, we think we’re going to get more community involvement and more focused service by doing that.

24/7: How is the dedicated crime prevention officer different than the dedicated sergeant?

Ford: Your question is, will he be patrolling the streets? The answer to that is no. One of the things he’s going to be doing is working with residents, HOAs, neighborhoods, businesses, and it’s pushing bringing everyone into the equation of crime prevention. The goal is making Menifee an undesirable place for criminals because we eliminate the opportunities. He’ll be training in things like crime prevention through environmental design. He’ll be in the community a lot, but he won’t be someone who’s handling calls for service, per se. But because he’s in the community so much, our hope is the dividend will be much higher than somebody responding to crime after the fact. The way we see it, he’ll be responsible for so much crime that doesn’t occur.

Tonight's City Council meeting will begin at 7 p.m. at City Hall, located at 29714 Haun Road. If the budget proposal is approved tonight, it will be officially adopted at the June 21 council meeting.