It Doesn’t Add Up

Thursday, March 15, 2007 | Three to five years before the San Diego Police Department is at normal staffing levels?  With the utmost respect, that is ludicrous! If we are losing an average of 14 per month and our largest academy in the past two years is 35 new recruits, how will we reach normal staffing levels?

I cannot remember when we have had more than three academys in one year. Let’s say we drop to nine per month for attrition. That would be a loss of 108 cops a year — 540 cops lost in five years.

We have 1,888 total cops today. Minus the 540 gives us 1,348 cops in five years with no more losses.

Lets add:  35 cops x 3 academies = 105 cops per year. Then, multiply 105 x 5 years = 525. 1348 plus 525 = 1872 cops in five years will be what we will have! It doesn’t add up.

If our economy tanks, and we lower our standards for hiring, we might reach 2,000 cops, by increasing to five academies and reaching 50 cops per. This doesn’t take into account the population increase meaning we will need more cops to protect the citizens than the 2108 we are budgeted for!

We need to start asking hard questions of Mayor Jerry Sanders and publicizing these figures.