Politics

Council Announces Plan For Police Recruitment And Retention

By Sandhya Dirks / KPBS Metro Reporter

Published June 18, 2013 at 8:01 AM PDT

This story was published more than 10 years ago.

Police in riot gear break up Occupy San Diego protesters at the San Diego Civic Center Plaza on Oct. 28, 2011.

For the past few years, San Diego has hemorrhaged police officers. According to San Diego Police Department leaders, the reason is simple math: by moving to another police force, officers can often increase their take home pay by up to $1,500 per month.

Four City Council members this afternoon will announce a plan to recruit and retain officers for San Diego's force.

This isn’t the first time politicians have paid attention to the recruitment gap. When council members passed a budget last week, it included expanding the number of recruits for the city's four annual police academies from 31 to 36.

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In addition, San Diego police officers ratified a five-year labor deal with the city earlier this month even as the Police Officers Association warned real solutions to retention and recruitment were still needed.

Stay tuned for what measures the four City Council members are suggesting will help tackle the problem.

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Sandhya Dirks

As KPBS’ Metro Reporter, Sandhya Dirks covers city news and politics for radio, TV, and online. She focuses not just on the political horserace, but on how policies affect people in the community. Prior to joining the KPBS Newsroom, Sandhya worked at Iowa Public Radio, where she covered the 2012 presidential campaign for that key state as well as state politics. Sandhya contributed regularly to NPR during the election year and produced stories for Harvest Public Media - a reporting collaboration focused on issues of food, fuel and ﬁeld. As a state-wide reporter, Sandhya focused on stories of growing diversity in the heartland and investigated the broken mental health system in Iowa. Sandhya started her career in the Bay Area at public radio station KALW. Her work focused on investigative stories and features on poverty, violence, and the criminal justice system. Her work has been honored with a Mark of Excellence Award by the Society of Professional Journalists and a regional Edward R. Murrow award. Sandhya has a master’s degree from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism, where she refined her audio skills and learned multimedia reporting, editing, and production. Her master’s project on international adoption earned her a prestigious Patsy Pulitzer Preston fellowship.

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