A staff shortage at the Tucson Police Department is a hot topic in the Tucson City Council race, and candidates differ on whether a tax increase is the solution.
Some candidates say money to help address the staffing could come from a half-cent increase in the city sales tax, which voters would have to approve. Others say the city has to spend the money it has more wisely.
TPD is authorized for 992 commissioned officers. There are 81 job openings and a wave of retirements from the Deferred Retirement Option Program.
It’s hard for TPD to keep up with attrition, said Capt. Decio Hopffer.
There are fewer qualified candidates than job openings, and there are limited seats at the police academy. It costs $100,000 to pay, train and equip a police officer, Hopffer said.
A recent recruiting effort in Detroit, for example, drew 72 applicants, but only 19 survived physical and written tests and a complex background check process. Six of them are now in training at the police academy, and TPD is close to hiring three more, Hopffer said.
Keeping officers is tough, too. They have increased workloads following a reorganization, they haven’t had raises for seven years, they took furloughs in 2011, and they’re seeing less money in their paychecks due to increased contributions for pension and health care.
The Tucson Police Officers’ Association, a labor union, recently asked the city council for a double merit pay increase next fiscal year, a $2 cost-of-living adjustment and support for a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for police services.
Some decisions will be made by the next police chief — Chief Roberto Villaseñor is retiring in December — and a staffing study is underway to provide the new chief with data.
Here’s what candidates have said about the issue:
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Republican Margaret Burkholder said it would be a priority to increase the number of police officers and firefighters.
Other cities are offering police officers higher pay and a better work environment, Burkholder said.
Hopffer said that in exit interviews, a large number of officers say they’re leaving for other agencies that pay better, including smaller towns like Marana and Oro Valley.
Star research showed TPD ranked 10th out of 14 law enforcement agencies in the state in median salary last year.
Burkholder said she likely wouldn’t support a sales tax increase as a way to fund police service.
Incumbent Democrat Shirley Scott has emphasized the progress made by maintaining staffing levels, funding some police academies and replacing some aged police cars even in difficult budget years.
In 2009, Proposition 200 would have mandated a number of police officers on the street, but it failed because there was no money attached to it, Scott said.
She said the public may decide to move the transit system to a separate regional transit authority, or to increase the sales tax to pay for transit, which would free up money for the police budget.
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Republican Bill Hunt said it would be a top priority to hire and keep well-qualified police officers.
The growing costs of the public safety pension system are driving the city’s budget problems, he said. The city can’t change its agreement with existing officers, but new officers should pay more, he said.
That’s already happening, said TPOA government affairs director Jason Winsky. Officers with three or fewer years of service are in a different tier for pension contributions, and they have to work 25 years instead of 20.
There’s also talk of a third tier, but all of those decisions are controlled at the state level, not by the city council, he said.
Incumbent Democrat Regina Romero said she would support a dedicated funding source for public safety. Several cities in the Phoenix metro area already have tax streams to help fund police services, and Tucson is at a disadvantage if it doesn’t follow suit, she said.
Winsky said a tax is just one of the options that should be on the table when the city council discusses police funding.
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Republican Kelly Lawton said a reduction in police officers on Tucson’s East Side is a significant problem.
There aren’t enough officers to adequately protect citizens in Ward 2 or citywide, and response times are going up, Lawton said.
Winsky said TPD officers are doing a good job responding to serious emergencies.
He said the problem is more with services that affect quality of life. In order to focus on priority services, TPD cut back on things like crime prevention and school-resource officers, he said.
Lawton said he’d like to see two police officers per 1,000 city residents, which would be about 1,052 officers.
He doesn’t have a detailed plan for how to pay for the extra officers, but the city increased its spending on graffiti removal by $880,000 this year, and that’s some money that could have been spent on officer pay, Lawton said.
Incumbent Democrat Paul Cunningham disagreed that residents are not protected and said the crime rate has gone down for 10 years. Lawton’s position is “one of those ridiculous ‘I hate Tucson’ arguments” and insults the police staff’s hard work, Cunningham said.
Tucson’s violent crime rate, as reported in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program, saw an uptick in 2012 but was down to about seven violent crimes per 1,000 people from about nine violent crimes per 1,000 people 10 years earlier.
The number of police positions in the city budget hasn’t changed, and the police operations budget has grown, Cunningham said.
There are plenty of applicants for job openings, and the city should look at the hiring process to make sure TPD is not rejecting qualified candidates, he said.
On police pay, Cunningham said although some officers aren’t getting paid enough, many earned six figures last year.
