Community Skeptical of Outsourcing Police

Millbrae would save about $1.5 million per year if it outsourced its police services to the Sheriff’s Office, according to a revised analysis presented on Tuesday.

About 150 people gathered yesterday at a town-hall-style meeting in the Chetcuti Room to discuss the police department’s future – whether the city should maintain its own force with an additional $410,00 from the general fund or contract out to the Sheriff’s Office.

Apart from gathering public input, the city presented a comparable cost breakdown between the Millbrae Police Department and Sheriff’s Office, since the did not include other expenses such as overtime and retirement benefits.

“The Sheriff’s Office has what I call bench strength,” said Police Chief Neil Telford, . “They have more officers if someone is on-leave.”

Essentially, the city does not need to hire extra cops to cover shifts for those who are sick or on vacation.

Millbrae would spend about $7.3 million annually on its own police department, whereas the Sheriff’s Office proposal would cost about $5.8 million.

In regard to these savings however, many speakers admonished Mayor Dan Quigg, who moderated the meeting, and the city for claiming to present an “apples to apples” comparison, pointing to the report’s fallacy in measuring the costs for 30 Millbrae police employees to 16 with the sheriff’s deal.

“Who will cover for an officer when he makes an arrest? Or he needs backup, or he's on a lunch break,” Traffic Sergeant Ron Gleeson said. 

The sheriff’s proposal will staff only two officers compared to the three Millbrae cops that currently patrol the city during a 24-hour weekday shift.

Millbrae can request more patrol from the Sheriff’s Office at an additional cost, unknown at this point as the city only asked the sheriff to compile a minimum staffing-level proposal.

“Why are we even looking at this proposal? It’s inadequate,” said Marc Farber, a retired police sergeant and a city council candidate. “And what is the urgency?”

Quigg said that the city needed to act quickly because eight officers had formally stated they were seeking employment elsewhere, regardless of the council’s decision.

“Naturally morale is at an all time low,” said Police Sergeant Mike Grogan, noting that had recently left for the Oakland Police Department.

The Sheriff’s Office has promised to hire all full-time Millbrae police personnel.

But, “non-sworn members will lose their job, not everyone will be hired,” said Peter Finn, who represents Teamsters Local 856, a clerical employees union.

He also thought it was undemocratic that the current city council, which may be replaced by three new members after the , should decide the police department's fate.

People questioned the likelihood of the rehired Millbrae cops being assigned back to the community.

In San Carlos, , nine of the original 32 sworn officers remained patrolling the city.

Many people lamented that Millbrae may lose its community flavor by contracting policing, and some favored maintaining the department through either an increased sales or utility tax. 

Most were skeptical that the Sheriff’s Office would provide the same level of service, and in a recent , about 80 percent voted to retain the Millbrae Police Department.

The city will hold another public forum on police services on Nov. 5 at 9 a.m. in the Chetcuti Room, and the city council is expected to vote on Nov. 15 on whether to disband the police department or allocate more funding to it.

For more information, check out Millbrae Patch’s topic page on the police department.