Another local union that represents Morgan Hill public safety
employees voted to oppose a potential consolidation of police
services with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
Another local union that represents Morgan Hill public safety employees voted to oppose a potential consolidation of police services with the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office.
The Morgan Hill Community Service Officers Association voted Monday, with an “overwhelming majority” of the union members opposed to exploring a contract with the county that would dissolve the city’s police department, MHCSOA president Donna MacKnight said.
Such a proposal would leave the group’s 18 members “out in the cold,” she said. While unions representing sworn patrol officers and detectives in the city and the county claim that local officers would be absorbed by the sheriff’s office in a possible consolidation, there is no such guarantee for law enforcement support staff.
CSOA members include dispatch employees, records staff, multi-service officers, and other support staff.
“We think it would not benefit our members, and we haven’t seen any hard data that show it would save the city money,” MacKnight said. “And I don’t see how one union can promise another union that their jobs are safe. This should be negotiated between the city and the county.”
There are open dispatch and records positions in the sheriff’s office, MacKnight said, but the agency does not seem to be actively recruiting to fill the vacancies. Local CSOA members “want to work for the city of Morgan Hill,” she added.
Monday’s vote was the first time the CSOA has discussed the possibility of contracting with the county for police services, and how such a plan would affect its members.
They took the vote in response to the Morgan Hill Police Officers Association’s suggestion, presented to council members Friday, to consolidate police services with the county.
In a letter hand-delivered to council members, POA president Ken Howard said a contract with the county would be “more cost-effective” than the city maintaining its own police force. The city currently spends about $9.7 million on its police department.
“(W)ith the layoff of police officers the alternative, the POA wholeheartedly embraces consolidation as being in the best interests of city residents, city employees, and our members,” the letter states.
The proposal is the POA’s answer to requests by the city to present ideas to cut costs as Morgan Hill faces a $1.8 million deficit going into the fiscal year that starts July 1.
It goes on to note that the city could provide its current level of police coverage or better, at a lower cost than it now spends. It notes that the cities of Saratoga, Cupertino and Los Altos Hills contract with the sheriff at a substantially lower per-capita cost than Morgan Hill’s police department.
Furthermore, a consolidation of police services would allow the county to use existing Morgan Hill facilities, and the city would “maintain significant local control.”
And the officers who currently patrol the streets of Morgan Hill would still be assigned to the city limits, Howard said in the letter to city officials.
Mayor Steve Tate said he and city staff are “open” to the idea, but will have to conduct extensive research and analysis to determine if the savings envisioned by the POA are really feasible.
Councilwoman Marby Lee said while she understands the union’s concerns and their reasoning for the proposal, the letter she received Friday “breaks my heart.”
“For a long time, the police identity of Morgan Hill is something that’s (been) important,” Lee said.
She added that sometimes she wishes the council could go back and reconsider some of its past decisions. Specifically, she said the city should have focused more on higher priority public services, such as public safety, instead of building new recreation facilities that it now has to maintain and staff.
“For a town our size, is that something we can afford on a long-term basis?” Lee said. “It’s not that I don’t like recreation, but can you do recreation at the expense of public safety?”
City Manager Ed Tewes said if the POA wants the city to consolidate police with the sheriff – an arrangement that would effectively dissolve the local union – then it next should agree to amend its contract with the city. That contract sets the wages, hours and working conditions for the POA, which represents 32 sworn officers.
The POA’s contract with the city goes through 2013, and includes at least one raise per year. The last raise for POA members went into effect April 1, and cost the city about $200,000.
The union’s contract would have to be amended before the city staff and council could consider a consolidation of police with the county, Tewes said.
Howard disagreed, and said city officials could look at proposals for a police contract with the county, without approving one, before revising the current contract with the POA. But if the council approves some version of the POA’s idea, the local contract would have to be renegotiated or eliminated.
The POA has heard significant input from the public since it announced its desire to be absorbed into the county, Howard said.
“Most of the feedback has been positive, in the sense that the public is wanting to know what the proposal is going to be,” he said.
He added the POA has not heard any response to the proposal from city officials.
