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BS Ranch Perspective:
cannot help but notice one thing, that the San Bernardino Police Department has also moved to get away from their 3% at 55 and change it to 3% @ 50 retirement, just like every other Police Department in the Inland Empire except Two other departments, Upland, and Rialto!! Rialto was almost Disband and Contracted with the Sheriff Department all over the Retirement of the Officers, however The Sheriff Department does not offer any Medical benefits to their Deputies when they retire now at 50 anyway. They don't get any Medical at all for the retired Deputies. So you might be getting the 3% At 50 but no Medical Benefits, and that can cost you up to $700 a month or more!
Now that SBPD wants to have the 3% @ 50 Retirement, and if they get it then the City of Rialto, and the City of Upland will have to pony up and pay for the Benefit of having a lower crime rate with their own police department! Because when Ed Scott was trying desperately to get the Crime Rate in Rialto to bloom Higher an higher by cutting back on all the maintenance to the Police Cars, and the Officers Pay, not to mention that they were cutting back on the Officers Benefits by not paying for new people to replace the ones that left. so when they were down over 20 officers the Police Officers that were working at Rialto Police department still lowered the crime some 15% with less officers. Now that they have to keep the Police Department they need to figure out a way that they can pay them and give them the benefits that they deserve such as the 3% at 50 retirement package. SBPD is going to get it, and eventually so is Upland and then the city of Rialto will have no choice. because Rialto becomes a training facility as it always has been.
The people that Rialto seems to not want around seem to leave and go to other agencies and excel, to the point that some of them are Sergeants, and Captains at other departments. I don't have an Idea why they wanted to get rid of them. Maybe because they were good and they knew it.
BSRanch
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SBPD, police union look to the future
By Gina Tenorio
Staff Writer
SAN BERNARDINO - They had common goals. Or so they would all eventually learn.
City officials, San Bernardino police administrators and the Police Officers Association agreed last summer that whatever benefits package they hammered out during yearlong contract negotiations would be the ones they would be presenting to any future job candidates.
The negotiations wrapped up in late August.
"I think we reached a package that everyone could live with," said City Manager Fred Wilson, who worked closely with the Police Department and association.
Starting next year, officers will see a gradual increase in the annual uniform allowance, said the association's president, Sgt. Rich Lawhead.
"We will receive $975 overall annually," Lawhead said. "It will go up gradually until (late 2008). Before that, we got $600 annually."
This will help officers who are paying upwards of $140 for a good pair of wool uniform pants, he said.
The new contract also aims to entice experienced officers to join the San Bernardino Police Department by offering a sign-on bonus, said police Lt. Ted Henson, who heads the Police Department Personnel and Training Unit.
Any officer with two years of continuous service with a California municipal law-enforcement agency would be eligible for a $5,000 sign-on bonus. Entry-level recruits would be eligible for $2,500, Henson said.
The association also secured a little bit more for an officer's medical benefits after retirement. A sworn officer who works continuously for 30 years or more is eligible for $450 a month to pay for medical needs. A 20-year veteran may get the minimum of $200.
But the most significant change was the new retirement plan known as the 3 percent at 50, in which officers could retire at age 50 and receive 3 percent of their pay multiplied by the number of years worked.
Previously, it was 3 percent at 55, Lawhead said.
All of these added features and expenses, to be implemented in phases and completely in place by 2009, will add $2.8 million to the annual cost of running the Police Department.
The cost is worth it to a city looking to increase the size of its police force to fully staff Mayor Pat Morris' Operation Phoenix and the Police Department's crime-fighting initiatives.
Without these options, San Bernardino police are not as capable of competing against a throng of police departments scrambling to fill their staffs.
"Many agencies are having a difficult time filling their vacancies," Henson said. "They are employing a number of tools and programs to attract interest."
Many police departments, such as the one in Rialto, which struggled to hammer out a contract following turmoil last year - city officials considered scrapping the Police Department and contracting with the Sheriff's Department - have begun offering new officers a $5,000 signing bonus. Sworn personnel who brought in new officers were offered $1,000, Rialto police officials said in September.
Most police departments are after experienced officers with two or more years of training, Henson said. Tried and tested officers take less time to train. And it is easier to judge their on-the-job integrity, Henson added.
"A lot of the transgressions made by officers points to the urgency (of) selecting these qualified officers," Henson said. "You can hire character and you can teach skill."
Henson did not disclose how many officers the Police Department currently employs. It was authorized to have 330 as of Oct. 1. That's the highest number of authorized personnel in at least six years.
But hiring is not easy, especially as attrition continues to take its course. Since Oct. 1, the Police Department has lost a total of 16 officers.
Meanwhile, it has hired 17 novice officers and brought in in two more experienced officers from other departments since the start of 2006.
Henson, Lawhead and Wilson are looking ahead, however, and feel strongly the new contract, though much more costly than before, will make an impact.
"There's no shortcut to get where you want to go," Henson said.
Contact writer Gina Tenorio at (909) 386-3854 or via e-mail at gina.tenorio@sbsun.com.
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