Junepocalypse Has Come, Now What’s Left?

The City and County of San Francisco’s fiscal year ended on June 30th. Every June/July comes a magical time where the City departments realize if they have money left at the end of the fiscal year. Followed shortly after by burning through whatever they have left, before new money gets dumped into their coffers on July 1. Typically, this shell game type behavior leads to things like two back to back Academy classes so one can be on the end of a budget cycle, while the next class starting shortly after July 1 is miraculously funded with the new fiscal year money. But when you can not fill one Academy class, I guess we can’t have two.

But it’s not all fun “Three Card Monty” style money games for the City. There is the other side which I will call Junepocalypse. That’s because every June 30th, many people decide to retire prior to the new fiscal year. Those fortunate souls leave on June 30th, to enjoy the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) Raise they can receive starting on July 1. So basically, if active members are going to get let’s say a 4% raise, the newly retired receive half of that amount 2% as a COLA almost immediately, not a bad deal. Since the COLA raise could be quite large, those with service time look to leave right around June 30 every year.

With SFPD numbers dwindling, losing anyone to retirement, resignation, or termination is immediately detrimental to the number of cops able to protect San Francisco. So how did we fare this year at Junepocalypse?

Early figures look to be around 40 retired or resigned in the two weeks leading toward Junepocalypse. Is 40 really that bad?

According to the SFPD’s published Sworn Full-Duty Staffing numbers:

In 2019, the SFPD was at a high-water mark of 1,869 sworn full-duty members in the City.[1] But by the beginning of 2022, that number had fallen to 1,639 sworn full-duty members. This represents a 12.3% decrease in police staffing in the City in under 2 years. Since those numbers were published a few months ago the stream of cops leaving has only continued flowing, including the 40 I mentioned above.

On the Academy side, our most recent three classes, including current classes have 15, 17, and 20 members. Of these 52 potential cops, the department expects 67% to pass through the Field Training Officer program, meaning if we’re lucky, we will end up with 35 cops in the end.

So, is 40 really a lot? Well 40 will most likely eliminate any hiring gains made for the past year. Since classes are 8 months long, that is all of last year and all of this year’s classes so far. The amount the SFPD is hiring will not keep up with attrition from Junepocalypse let alone normal monthly attrition which is still humming along at over 10 per month.

As mentioned before, the 1994 Crime Bill paid for many SF cops to be hired. Most of whom are already eligible to retire right now. They all hit max benefit within the next 2-3 years. How can we ever expect to fill the void they will leave?

How can anyone in good conscience working in upper management not be doing anything about this? I heard last week a high-ranking member told the patrol members about the staffing problems, “Its bad” and “This is the new normal.” I guess at least we’re finally being honest?

If there is a plan, it has not been communicated, which makes me believe there’s no plan except for excessive mandatory overtime. Unlimited optional overtime is cool for a little while, but unlimited mandatory overtime, forever, is not a retention strategy. In addition to how unhealthy it is for our current members’ mental and physical health, it only leads to increased burn-out, an increased rate of on-duty injuries, and more cops leaving.

Recruitment and Retention should be the #1 priority. If they are not, then we have entered a level of incompetence that I can only describe as “Malicious Incompetence.” These issues have been discussed for years, like my article discussed a couple weeks ago. The powers in charge, know there is an issue, they’ve known for years. They commissioned a study about it and have findings. Yet we still have no plan to help alleviate the problem.

Maybe we just have to wait for Mighty Mouse to come and save the day.

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[1] I say “Full-Duty Sworn members in the City” because the SFPD is also responsible for the San Francisco International Airport (SFO). SFO members do not patrol the City and therefore should not be counted toward the overall available SFPD Staffing numbers, however, sometimes, they are included which may then show larger sworn numbers for the SFPD.