Katie McDevitt
East Valley Tribune
January 24, 2008 - 12:02AM

Mesa police must slash $7.2 million from the department’s budget in the coming year in response to a forecast drop in city sales tax revenue. City officials said public safety won’t be affected, but Mesa’s two police unions said it’s too early to know for sure.
Economy forces Mesa to cut deeper, “The sad part is we’re going to be providing inferior service to what we have in the past. … It kind of gets me to wonder if all that crime-fighting is going to be negated,” said Fabian Cota, president of the Mesa Police Association.
General Fund sales tax revenue is expected to be $4.6 million lower than anticipated in fiscal 2007-08 and $8.2 million lower in the 2008-09 budget year, police Chief George Gascón said in a video memo to police employees last week over departmental e-mail.
This means the police department must reduce its more than $147 million operating budget by about 5 percent, a cut of $7.2 million, in the coming year, the memo said.
“It’s forcing our managers to look more globally about what resources are out there,” said John Meza, assistant police chief.
The department plans to make the cuts by purchasing less equipment, reducing overtime, reducing calls for service by not responding to nonserious calls and by spreading resources more evenly across the city, beginning Feb. 1.
But while the budget cuts already threaten to reduce the number of officers on the street, the city’s one tax earmarked for hiring officers will also come to an end in the coming year.
The quality-of-life tax allowed Mesa police to hire 12 officers per year for the past 10 years, and although it still funds those hired officers, it won’t be in place to pay for any more officers in the future, Meza said. Officials said the department will compensate by staffing at basic service levels, where police are covering the city to the best of their ability, and critical staffing levels, which is where the department’s number of officers on the street “falls significantly low,” Meza said.
But when officers call in sick or when a particular area demands more cops, supervisors will now move officers around from other parts of the city to needed areas, instead of paying overtime to officers to stay late or work on their days off.
“Once you reach critical staffing levels, yes, you can call people in for overtime,” Meza said.
But most of the overtime work will have to be slashed.
Cota said Gascón’s video memo resulted in a “torrent response” from union members concerned about everything from being unable to make ends meet without overtime pay to officers’ compensatory time being restricted.
“I think our chief is caught between a rock and a hard place, and he’s trying to minimize the impact it has on us and the citizens,” Cota said.
However, officials aren’t just asking police officers to be patient — they are also hoping the public will understand possible lengthier response times and seeing fewer officers on the streets.

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January 08_newsletter

Katie McDevitt
East Valley Tribune
January 10, 2008 - 9:54AM

Tempe pays new police officers more than any other East Valley agency. Maricopa County and Chandler pay among the least. Veteran Tempe officers work the fewest hours and get paid the most on average, while Mesa officers are among the lowest-paid and work more hours than average.
These are some of the findings of a Policepay.net study funded by Valley police unions to take an “independent” look at salaries and benefits, according to Mesa Police Association President Sgt. Fabian Cota.
“We felt (the analysis) was a really important thing to do because we know that it’s a very competitive market among cities,” Cota said.

“We felt the best way to go about it was to hire an independent company and make the report available to the public … free of any biases some of the city things may have had.”
Cota said city human resource departments generally analyze such issues, so a group of local police unions paid about $15,000 to Policepay.net to compile a report for them. The analysis began in June and was completed Nov. 15.
Cota said his union plans to use the report in negotiations with Mesa and, if necessary, will share it with the City Council. This week, he will also go over the report with police Chief George Gascón.
“It certainly showed where our weaknesses are,” Cota said. “We understand the city’s financial situation and we are cognizant of that, but this is kind of a road map of where we need to go.”
Chandler Law Enforcement Association President officer Paul Babeau said the report’s findings are most disconcerting in how they’ll affect the city’s ability to recruit.
“When one agency can hire at $8,000 to $10,000 to $12,000 more, that’s a very real issue for recruiting and for hiring the very best police officers,” Babeau said.
Babeau said a shrinking police applicant pool also increases the need to pay incoming officers more.
The report says incoming officers in Chandler start at a base pay of $46,571, compared with Scottsdale’s $47,965 and Tempe’s $54,010.

Paradise Valley officers’ pay starts at the highest in the Valley, but that agency only hires officers with prior service in other agencies.
“When I tested 5 1/2 years ago, there were over 500 applicants. … You couldn’t find a seat in there,” Babeau said. “Now we’re seeing 60, 70, 80 people that are testing.”
Phoenix Law Enforcement Association President Mark Spencer couldn’t be reached for comment Wednesday.
The report says Phoenix offers more money for education than Mesa and offers special pay for officers employed for more than eight years who meet specific goals, as well as career-enhancement pay for officers earning certifications and acquiring certain skills.
Cota said he would like to see Mesa officers compensated for staying physically fit.
“We seem to be so focused on direct compensation that we’re behind in these other areas,” Cota said. “That became glaringly apparent.”

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