Crime & Safety

Rohnert Park Police Chief Disputes Sheriff's Office Proposal for Law Enforcement Services

Chief Brian Masterson countered a preliminary report at a city budget workshop meeting Tuesday, June 7.

Editor's note: click on the video to the right to view a sampling of the public comments from Tuesday's meeting.

Less than 24 hours after City Manager Gabe Gonzalez released the cost analysis of a , Rohnert Park Police Chief Brian Masterson discredited the final report in a series of blows Tuesday.

Between 50 and 80 people packed City Hall throughout the afternoon, waiting to hear what the City Council and public safety officials had to say.

Find out what's happening in Rohnert Park-Cotatiwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The entire council agreed that they wanted additional information about the costs associated with contracting law enforcement to the county and fire services to either CalFire or Rancho Adobe Fire Protection District — an issue that’s amongst the powerful Rohnert Park Public Safety Officer’s Association and the city manager.

Gonzalez however, contends that he’s only looking into the cost for public safety — which takes up a whopping 54.8 percent of the new budget — and ultimately it’s up to the City Council to make the decision.

Find out what's happening in Rohnert Park-Cotatiwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The report detailed cost savings that mostly resulted from changes in staffing levels. Compared current public safety costs, estimated for 2011-2012 to be $11.2 million, three proposals were set forth by the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department. 

Option one would staff 44.75 police officers in Rohnert Park for $9.3 million annually; a second would staff 49.5 officers here for $10.3 million and the last would put 54.25 officers here for $11.3 million. Currently the department has 61.75 officers.

Rohnert Park Patch is following this story closely. In the interest in public information, we felt it appropriate to publish Masterson’s rebuttal at length. Here is a series of excerpts of Masterson’s counter to the report, which was conducted by the Palo Alto-based firm Matrix Consulting Group for $9,500. Masterson roused the audience Tuesday and stirred a long, forceful applause mostly from public safety officers and their families.

- One of the things that’s important to understand in the scope of work Matrix was asked to do was they used the 2010-2011 budget, so they’re using the fiscal year that we’re currently in. In the beginning of fiscal year 2010-2011 we did have 79 full-time employees. We had 61 sworn, we had 18 professional. In the work session in presenting the 2011-2012 budget … we no longer have the same amount of positions today … as we did in the last fiscal year. There’s one less lieutenant, that is not reflected in the analysis. It’s not the fault of Matrix, but they had to go on one full year of budgetary expenses in order to do the analysis. So, there’s one less lieutenant, two less public safety officers, one less dispatcher, one less fire commander that are not in 2011-12 budget that are reflected in the cost of the analysis.

- What we have is 61.75 sworn and non-sworn. When you break down that number again, we’re using the 2010-’11 numbers, there are 43 police officers, 10 dispatchers and eight records and administrative assistants to give you 61.75. As the city manager has explained, Matrix has done 45 studies of traditional police and traditional fire departments. It is very difficult to do an analysis and break out police and fire in public safety because we do both jobs. So when you look at this number of 61, what you really have is you have 79 people assigned to public safety sworn and non-sworn that both police and fire fighting, not just police. The public safety model has been consolidated since 1962.

- Animal services are estimated at $500,000:  we eliminated our community service officers back in 2008, it became the responsibility of the public safety officers to pick up animals. If you contract out police and you contract out fire, who is going to do animal control. There has to be a cost associated with it. An animal control officer is about $101,000, including salary and employee benefits: it’s not in the study. These are some of the costs that have to be considered.

- The Rohnert Park director, salary and employee benefits, is 271,000 compared to a lieutenant at $231,000. So you have a director who does both police and fire and animal control. I’m also going to say that you have someone who has 31 years of experience. I spent 28 years in the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office. I spent the last fie years in the largest contract in that county -- $16 million, over 100 people. And the six years prior to my promotion to captain, I was assigned as a lieutenant in planning and research. I wrote most of the contracts in Alameda County. So when you talk about cost analysis, you also as consumers have to look at more than just cost. There’s a quality. I would say from a risk-management, as elected officials, we have to look at the risk. A lieutenant is an entry-level manager. If you look at the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office … you are going to get a young person who probably doesn’t have the experience, education and the training that the current director has, and I think that’s something that has to be factored in.

- Looking at the two contract cities that the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has today – the city of Sonoma and the city of Windsor. Now, what’s interesting in this it goes from 2007 through 2011, and what it shows is that there’s a three-year increase in Sonoma County’s contract of 6.8 percent. In Windsor it shows an increase in the same timeframe of 1.6. [In the study] for some reason, the comparison in Rohnert Park starts in 2002 and it stops in 2008. It is not a fair comparison. To be fair, what the analysis should have shown is a comparison going 2008 to current for Rohnert Park Public Safety. There’s no question … for Rohnert Park Public Safety we had a 10 percent increase up to 2008. We also know as a city and as a council and as the director of Public Safety, we have consistently over the last three years reduced our budget.

- In 2008 we were $800,000 under budget, in the 2009-2010 budget, we were almost $600,000 under budget. In this fiscal year, 2010-2011 we will be under budget by almost $1 million.

- Comparison of current staffing of police in Rohenrt Park Public Safety in comparison to the Sheriff’s option, one, and what it shows is minimum staffing, and that’s important: minimum staffing: The sheriff’s contract is basic, or I would say below basic. What you hope to have is somewhere closer to a 50 percent proactive police time so your officers, your men and women, can do community policing. If you get below 40 percent you don’t have enough officers. Option one at 44 percent is just a little bit above that level, and their minimum staffing, in my opinion, is just that. It is very very minimum. It doesn’t reflect the sergeants – again, supervision is important. If you look at option one, you’ve got one lieutenant who serves as the chief of police. When that lieutenant is on vacation or off for training, who assumes the responsibility for the operation of the city? In option one, they’ve got that sergeant not only responsible for patrol, but in order to save money they’ve eliminated the records supervisor that we have today in Rohnert Park. They put the sergeant in charge of records and the sergeant is also going to have to step up and assume the responsibilities for the chief when the lieutenant’s gone. Could it be done? Absolutely. Is it a good risk for the city? No.

- On most of the hours in Rohnert Park, we have more officers. Under option one, officer per hour, in the sheriff’s proposal, in the hours of 2-6 a.m. each night, there are only three officers to patrol our city. If any one of those officers makes an arrest, and spends an hour to an hour an a half trying to book that prisoner in, we’ve got a city of 43,000 left to two deputy sheriffs to patrol. If you look at the model we’ve got in Rohnert Park, we’ve got five between 2 and 4 a.m. and then for two hours, we have three. But we also have six sergeants in control in comparison to the four in the sheriff’s model.

- Today in Rohnert Park I say that we have the best investigative unit in the county. Our detectives do a tremendous job. There is one sergeant and four detectives. In the sheriff’s option, it goes to 1.75. I’m not sure that’s acceptable to the citizens of Rohnert Park. In most major crimes … they teach two detectives in an interview. Why? Because we want two detectives to be thinking about questioning a suspect. If you’ve got 1.75 you can’t do that. Then what happens when that detective is gone. 

- What I will say is there are some things in the report that I’m going to use to do some assessment in our agency. We can always look for improvement. But I don’t think 1.75 detectives is going to get it.

- Given the current budget, for law enforcement, option may result in an annual baseline operating savings of approximately $1.9 million to $2 million in direct costs. And again I want to remind the Council that the analysis is on the approved budget and not actual costs. 

- One of the other things that’s important to understand in contracts, having written the last three contracts at the Oakland Airport, it’s what I call an introductory contract. In order to get their business, I simply have to underbid them, and I have to do the introductory contract. For example, in the Oakland Airport, there were may costs that we did not put in there. We discounted a lot of services knowing that we would get those back in the second or third contract. 

- We are going to get an introductory overhead cost, but I think it’s reasonable based on practices that the county has established [in Windsor and Sonoma] and proposals, that overhead is going to go up.

- Our employees are currently in negotiations. Any concessions that could potentially come are going to lower the savings in this contract introduced.

- In fire: if you look at the police analysis, it’s very detailed. That’s missing in fire; there is not enough detailed information to truly make any reasonable decision as to whether or not this is going to save money. Look at Rancho Adobe

– they’re a different fire department than public safety. They use volunteers to staff a lot of their engines; their chief is part-time – works 20 hours a week. Where is the chief’s cost in this proposal. Where is the cost of the fire captain? Where is the cost of the fire engineer? That level of detail is in the police side of the analysis, but it’s not in the fire side. What are the training costs? There’s no mention of a fire marshal. In Rohnert Park, we have a fire marshal that brings in over $190,000 in revenue based on plan checks and inspections. Is it here? I don’t know.

- I would summarize this as an introductory contract. Having written these in Alameda County, these costs are going to go up. 

The other thing I think is important to consider is the City Council will be giving up control for establishing salary and employee benefits. The council has to follow the contracts of salary and employee benefits set by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

- In closing … the Rohnert Park Department of Public Safety has made great strides in reducing expenses, and we will continue to do so as we embrace the ‘new normal.’ As long as I’m the director of public safety … I will pledge my commitment to the city of Rohnert Park and we will continue to make reductions where we can.

- There are a total of 76 employees, out of the 76 employees, 39 live in the city of Rohnert Park. Our citizens deserve a high quality of service at the lowest cost – that’s what we provide in the public safety model 

- I think it’s important to remember that in tough times, you can count on Rohnert Park Public Safety. If this was a contract city, and you had public employees, would they have gone door-to-door asking their friends and neighbors in assessing themselves a half-cent sales tax? I highly doubt it.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.