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DPA acting director clarifies staffing after union says layoff notices still in effect
Summary
Acting Executive Director Sharon Wu told the Police Commission that two filled DPA positions were eliminated by the mayor's office but that temporary positions and existing resources were used to keep the employees in place; TWU Local 200 said its members’ layoff notices have not been rescinded.
Devon Anderson, president of Transportation Workers Union Local 200, told the Police Commission on Sept. 10 that statements made last week by a Department of Police Accountability official gave the public the mistaken impression that layoff notices had been rescinded for DPA staff.
Why it matters: The exchange clarified whether employee terminations had been formally reversed and gave commissioners a timeline and explanation for how DPA preserved staff while some position numbers were cut during the mayor’s budget actions.
Anderson said a comment attributed to DPA Director Paul Henderson — that “we are able to claw back or renegotiate to take back all those positions” — was inaccurate and that “the layoff notices issued to our members have not been rescinded.” Anderson urged the commission to seek clarification from Director Henderson because the statement had “undermined trust, damage[d] morale, and create[d] confusion.”
Acting Executive Director Sharon Wu answered with a detailed accounting of positions and funding. She said the mayor’s office initially required four positions to be identified for reduction, including an investigator, a clerk, a senior investigator and an attorney. Negotiations restored the clerk position, leaving three positions. One investigator role had already been vacated, she said, and the remaining two filled positions — a senior investigator and an attorney — were eliminated on paper but the individuals in those roles remained with “temporary positions” funded from existing department resources.
Wu said the technical effect was that the department “lost positions” but did not lose the employees who occupied those positions because the city allowed the department to retain the staff bodies through temporary reassignments and funding. She described the temporary funding arrangements as intended to give the department time to seek permanent funding later and said she believed the temporary appointment period was at least three years.
Wu also reported other DPA workload metrics: a 27% increase in cases year-to-date — “140 more cases year to date from last year to this year” — and 11 investigators plus five senior investigators (about 16 investigators in total). She said the increase has raised caseloads by about 19% per investigator and that DPA would provide more detailed caseload numbers at a future meeting. Wu added that DPA has reduced its backlog of cases with SFPD and the commission compared with a year earlier.
Ending: Anderson pressed the commission for formal clarification from Director Henderson. Wu said the positions themselves were eliminated but the office kept the employees on temporary assignments and would seek to make the positions permanent in coming budget cycles.
