Elimination of Sworn Police Officer Positions

Culver City cut sworn officer positions from the City budget in order to decrease the number of armed staff. Culver City seeks to decrease the number of armed staff and find areas of the Police Department where armed staff can be replaced with unarmed staff, while maintaining the current level of service, in order to reduce the opportunity for interactions that could become violent or harmful, especially to people of color.

Sworn personnel, such as police officers, are authorized to carry a firearm, possess the power to  make arrests for violations of law, and are issued a badge for official identification. Sworn personnel must attend and successfully complete a law enforcement academy.

Non-sworn, or civilian, personnel in a police department do not possess the power to arrest or the ability to enforce laws.  Non-sworn personnel include community service officers, records/property supervisors, property technicians, parking enforcement officers, and animal service officers. Sworn personnel may perform the jobs of non-sworn personnel.

The Fiscal Year 2021/2022 Police Department Budget was 5.96% higher ($2.7 million) than the Fiscal Year 2020/2021 Police Department budget. This increase includes the elimination of eight sworn officer positions.

67% of the budget increase ($2,270,320) was for non-discretionary costs, which are costs over which the City has no control.  These were entirely personnel costs: mainly required funding of retirement benefits for current and former employees and salary increases required by the Culver City voter approved Salary Initiative Ordinance.  It also includes increases in other mandatory payroll cost such as FICA, Medicare, State Disability Insurance, etc.

20% of the budget increase ($674,097) was for fiscal responsibility items such as essential repairs & maintenance ($401,189), amortization ($216,567), and liability reserve ($56,341). Although not technically discretionary, choosing not to fund these items would be fiscally irresponsible.

13% of the budget increase ($447,233) was for discretionary items.  These include the following:

• IT Equipment ($163,000 or 5% of the increase)
  • This increase will pay for in-car camera systems for police vehicles.
• Automobile Replacement ($110,433 or 3% of the increase)
  • This increase will pay to replace Detective vehicles that have reached the end of their life.  This budget item is funded by proceeds that were transferred from the Asset Seizure fund in the prior fiscal year.
• Training ($80,500 or 2% of the budget increase)
  • This increase will help to pay for a department-wide training plan for all Culver City Police Department staff. Training will include procedural justice, implicit bias, fair and impartial policing, 21^st century policing, de-escalation, crisis intervention, conflict resolution, and duty to intercede training. It also includes re-training in the Department’s new Use of Force policy.
• Lab Accreditation / Contractor ($68,300 or 2% of the budget increase)
  • This funding re-establishes the accreditation process for the CCPD crime lab, which was previously underway and nearly completed, but was halted due to COVID-19 budget cuts last year. The funding increase is also for maintaining ongoing Police Department accreditation and internal audits and quality control.
• Volunteer Programs, including Police Explorers, Reserve Officers, and Volunteers in Patrol ($25,000 or 0.7% of the increase)
  • This increase helps re-establish these programs, which were cut last year due to COVID-19 related budget cuts.

The total budget increase was reduced by a cut of $455,920 in the Police Department budget for contract services and subscriptions, and a cut of $232,391 in the Police Department budget for capital purchases (see Table 1 for breakdown).

Table 1: Culver City Police Department Budget: FY 2020/2021 vs. FY 2021/2022 Expenditures

The Police Department's budget increased even as the City decreased the number of sworn officers for three reasons.

The first reason is that the City created new civilian positions to transition the work previously assigned to the sworn officer positions that were eliminated. The elimination of eight sworn officer positions helps achieve the City’s goal of reducing the number of armed officers to reduce the opportunity for interactions that could become violent or harmful, especially to persons of color.  However, the elimination of sworn officers does not result in 100% budget savings. Four of the sworn officer positions that were eliminated had job duties that will be carried out by newly created non-sworn employee positions.  Each new position, identified below, has a cost that partially offsets the savings from the elimination of the sworn officer positions:

• A community relations/social media coordinator.
• A training coordinator.
• Two automated red-light enforcement analysts.

The second reason that the Police Department’s budget increased despite the elimination of eight sworn officer positions is that there were other unrelated budget increases, most of which being for reasons outside the City’s control ("non-discretionary"), that added to a net-increase in the Police Department’s budget. These non-discretionary increases include salary increases required by a Culver City voter approved ballot initiative and pre-existing labor agreements, required pension contributions, and increased costs for health insurance.

Although the four added civilian positions and non-discretionary increases were the most significant reason that the Police Department budget increased, despite the elimination of eight sworn officer positions, the third reason that the Police Department budget increased is some discretionary spending increases. None of the discretionary spending increases was to add additional sworn officers. The discretionary spending increases are in-line with the goals of police reform and harm reduction, as they include funding for items such as department-wide training in de-escalation, crisis intervention, conflict resolution, implicit bias, and re-training in the Department’s new Use of Force policy.

For more specifics on the 2021-2022 Police Department budget increase, see the answer to the above question.

 Culver City’s goals include:

• Reducing opportunities for incidents of violence or harm to people of color.
• Retaining the level of service which Culver City residents receive from the Police Department.
• Maintaining existing sworn CCPD personnel, as recommended by the Solidarity Consulting report on police racial equity and social justice to demonstrate a commitment of reimagining community safety without derogating the contributions of the existing police force.  

Reducing the number of sworn officers by eight achieves all three of these goals. Eliminating more than eight sworn police officer positions or cutting the police department budget by 50% or does not achieve all three of these goals, because it would require laying-off existing sworn CCPD personnel and/or might negatively impact Culver City's level of service for public safety.

The City may consider further sworn personnel reductions in the future if there is a commensurate  reduction in sworn personnel workload. A reduction in sworn personnel workload would be evidence that further reducing sworn personnel would not negatively impact Culver City's level of service. For instance, it is anticipated the Mobile Crisis Intervention Service will result in a workload reduction for sworn police personnel. However, that exact workload reduction has yet to be determined. The City will periodically exam police sworn officer workload and reduce staff levels accordingly. This strategy is meant to ensure that overall public safety does not decrease as we reduce sworn officer staffing levels.

The Salary Initiative Ordinance (SIO) was a ballot measure first approved by Culver City voters in 1953(PDF, 59KB) , and which is currently part of the Culver City Municipal Code. The SIO requires that Culver City Police Officer base monthly salaries be based on the average of the base monthly salaries given to Los Angeles City Police Officers and Los Angeles County Sheriffs. This means that any time the base monthly salary increases for officers or sheriffs in either one of these other agencies, Culver City police officers must be provided a salary increase that is equivalent to 50% of that agency's increase. One result of the SIO is that the City of Culver City has no control over police officer base salaries, which are a significant portion of the Police Department's budget.

“Other pay” refers to a category of payments made to City employees, including Police Department Employees. Other pay includes compensation items besides regular base pay or overtime pay., Other pay may refer to longevity pay, educational incentive pay, bilingual pay, and other types of bonus pay. For more information on the types of pay and benefits received by employees in the Culver City Police Department, please reference the most recent Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Culver City and the Culver City Police Officer’s Association. Pay and benefits for CCPD are also outlined in the Police Management Group Memorandum of Understanding. 

The Los Angeles region—with 88 cities—has a large number of police agencies all competing for the same talent. The City's goal is to keep total compensation (including "other pay") competitive with other local police agencies to attract and retain the most talented professionals on our police force.  Other pay is part of the complete compensation package which is negotiated periodically between the City of Culver City and police officers’ employee bargaining units, and which is approved by the City Council. Culver City aims to attract and retain the best police professionals and employees to serve Culver City residents and businesses, while remaining fiscally responsible to Culver City taxpayers.