Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Community Policing topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
SFPD presents community-policing plan to committee; supervisors approve $900,000 interim reserve release
Summary
Assistant Chief Jim Lynch outlined SFPD's reorganization and community-policing model under Chief Gascon, while budget staff warned of post-grant retention costs; the committee agreed to release $900,000 of a larger $14.1 million reserve to cover near-term needs and asked for detailed deployment and accountability metrics.
The Budget & Finance Committee considered a presentation by the San Francisco Police Department describing an organizational reorganization and the department's community-policing vision under Chief Gascon, alongside a reserve release request tied to a federal COPS hiring recovery grant.
Assistant Chief Jim Lynch summarized reorganization steps, including consolidation of bureaus, creation of CompStat oversight, community advisory boards at stations, and a community relations section in the chief's office. Lynch said the changes aim to institutionalize problem-solving at the district level and expand pilot practices (such as Ingleside stationinitiatives) across the city, while warning that attrition and fiscal pressures will make deployment decisions challenging.
The budget analyst's office (Mr. Rose) told the committee the city would incur an estimated $6.3 million in retention costs in 2012-13 after federal funds are expended; that figure factored into deliberations about how much of the $14,112,750 reserve to release now. Supervisors asked for clearer, measurable deployment plans (how the 50 officers in the grant will be assigned) and said they wanted accountability metrics and quarterly reporting.
After public comment with mixed views, the committee voted to release $900,000 of the reserve to allow the department to continue through June and to return with a more detailed budget and deployment plan at the departments June hearing. Supervisors emphasized the need for more data about how the grant would translate into street-level community policing and how beat programs would be sustained.
