Costa Mesa City Council will consider augmenting police budget by another $589K

After budgeting $62 million for Costa Mesa Police Department, and earmarking another $211,000 to enhance police academy cadet and reserve officer pay, city officials on Tuesday will consider one more round of public safety expenditures.

A series of recommendations for improving compensation, recruitment and retention within CMPD’s Telecommunications Bureau — including 911 operators and public safety dispatchers — is being pitched, to the tune of $589,650 of additional funds this fiscal year.

With this year’s costs covered by $500,000 from City Manager Lori-Ann Farrell Harrison’s contingency fund and citywide salary savings from vacant positions, the proposal aims to help attract new candidates, while paying bonuses and overtime for current employees working more than 60 hours per week.

Currently budgeted at 21 full-time communications employees, the bureau has six vacancies, while several other employees are out on leave or working under restrictions, according to a city staff report.

“In the past 12 years, the bureau has hired 46 full-time employees, and of these 46 hires, only nine remain as full-time employees resulting in an 80% turnover rate,” the report states, indicating many staff transition to part-time work or leave altogether due to high workloads or a “rigorous and complex training period.”

Under the proposed plan, training officer assignments would be created and paid an additional 12.5% for all hours worked under the assignment.

Current full-time employees would receive one-time retention bonuses of $15,000, paid in two equal installments upon approval by the City Council and one year later. Staff would also receive additional half-time pay anytime staffing falls below 18 full-time, fully trained employees.

Additionally, a two-year pilot program aiming to attract entry-level police recruits and dispatchers, as well as recruits, dispatchers and police officers working at other agencies would similarly offer bonuses, ranging from $10,000 to $25,000, to be paid in installments as hiring and training benchmarks were attained.

Staff estimate the pilot program would cost about $200,000 of the total amount being proposed this year, while compensation adjustments would amount to $270,650 for the remainder of 2024-25 and then $485,219 annually after that.

Mobile video system to cost $6.9M over 10 years

Another item scheduled to go before the City Council on Tuesday asks for authorization of nearly $7 million from the Costa Mesa Police Department’s budget over the next 10 years to purchase a mobile video system from Axon Enterprise, Inc. that would include body-worn cameras and an in-car video system.

The new contract would cost $733,266 for the first year — a sum already included in CMPD’s 2024-25 budget — and be followed by an annual $690,696 in subsequent years. It would follow on the heels of a 5-year contract with Seattle-based security company WatchGuard Technologies, set to expire in 2025.

That system, according to city staff reports, had slow upload speeds that would require vehicles to be out of commission for up to two days and would make sharing footage with other agencies, like the Orange County district attorney’s office, a complex task.

“The time and costs associated with personnel copying evidence for court were substantial, inefficient, and unreasonable,” the staff report reads. “In August 2023, our Evidence Discovery Unit was approximately 821 cases behind due to the extraordinary time it took to download and share video.”

In late 2023, Axon granted the city the right to use its proprietary server to share digital evidence and helped reduce the backlog to just 46 cases.

The council meeting begins Tuesday at 6 p.m. at Costa Mesa City Hall, 77 Fair Drive. For the meeting agenda, visit costamesaca.gov and click on “Current Agendas.”