Police to Cut 60-70 Officers With Buyout : Budget: Response time is expected to increase as officers take lucrative retirement offer. 30 to 40 city firefighters may also retire early.

In the largest one-time departure from the San Diego Police Department, 60 to 70 officers of all ranks are expected to accept a lucrative buyout offer that will push the agency to its lowest staffing level in years, Police Chief Bob Burgreen said Tuesday.

The reduction will trim the top-heavy department of 32 ranking captains, lieutenants and sergeants, and 30 to 40 field officers. The mass retirement comes at a time when the rank and file has already given up the 1.5% pay raise it was promised last spring.

Under the terms of the buyout--offered to anyone age 50 or older with 20 or more years of service--two years of service are added to each individual’s retirement package.

The buyout is so attractive that Burgreen has accepted the package himself and will retire in January. He will continue to work under a separate contract with the city to guide the department through April or May.

The significant loss of so many officers leaves the city--which did not graduate a single officer recruit from its last academy class--in a bind over how to make good on a promise by the City Council in June that it would hire 250 new officers by the end of 1998.

To do that, the city would have to put aside $4.5 million to $6 million a year for the next four to five years. Each officer costs the city about $100,000, including overhead, benefits and patrol car, city officials said.

City leaders have often complained that the ratio of San Diego officers to population--about 1.6 per 1,000--has been at or near the bottom of the top 10 largest cities for each of the past four years and is due to worsen.

All through 1992, San Diego’s police union and mayoral candidates have floated plans to add more police officers. Members of the San Diego Police Officers Assn. began gathering signatures earlier this year for a November ballot measure that would have added 1,313 officers by the year 2000 but stopped after entering into a new two-year collective bargaining agreement with the city.

Within some ranks of the department, a permanent downsizing will occur, Burgreen said, including the elimination of two assistant chiefs, three captains, 11 lieutenants and eight sergeants.

Burgreen predicted that the department’s level of response to calls for service would drop starting next January, when the buyout is accepted. It will continue until February, 1994, he said, when the next graduating police academy class will have completed officer training and those selected will be ready for duty.

“You’ll see a degradation of service and it’s entirely because of budgetary reasons,” Burgreen said. “None of us in the public or private sectors can escape the hit. You don’t trim money from the city and expect the Police Department not to be affected.”

The department has been bolstered by some 200 volunteers who are manning the police neighborhood storefront locations and answering telephones at police stations, the chief said. And the department is counting on its reserve officers to assume greater duties now handled by sworn officers.

Few police agencies in California have offered buyouts, an alternative that has been offered to city police officers and firefighters as a way to save millions of dollars. The buyouts are attractive under a public safety retirement system which allows officers and firefighters to retire at 50 years old, Burgreen said.

“By adding two more years to someone’s retirement, it makes it that much more feasible for someone to leave,” he said.

City Manager Jack McGrory said Tuesday that the buyouts in the Police Department alone could save $2 million. Another 30 to 40 city firefighters are expected to take a buyout and 50 to 60 other city employees might retire through the buyout.

A typical buyout adds about 5% in extra retirement benefits, McGrory said.

The city saved $1.5 million last spring when members of the Police Officers Assn. agreed to give back a 1.5% salary increase. The firefighters union agreed to a 5% salary rollback during 1993 that will save the city $1.1 million. The Municipal Employees Assn., which represents some 4,000 city workers, agreed to five days without pay, with brought the city a $1.6 million savings. And Local 127, the union that represents 1,700 blue-collar workers, agreed to savings that earned the city $500,000.

“It’s amazing that all these labor groups came together to help the city out,” McGrory said. “They should be commended.”

McGrory and Burgreen agreed that the Police Department’s situation is not as dire as it could be given that the agency was over its budget by about 30 positions. The department now has 1,880 sworn officers and is budgeted for 1,850.

Given the mass retirements, however, the City Council will have to come to grips with ways to hire more officers over the next few years so police service does not slide even further behind, they said.

Earlier this month, the City Council opposed an initiative proposed by defeated mayoral candidate Peter Navarro that would have linked new development to an increase in police hiring. Mayor-elect Susan Golding has endorsed a proposal that would set aside property tax revenue for police. Since projections show little growth in that area, she has also suggested other budget cuts as an alternative.

“If this recession continues, we’re going to have to do a little reality check here,” McGrory said. “And if the state Legislature takes the same approach to gouging the cities and counties as before, we can expect heavy hits again.”