May 17

May 17 Sacramento Police Department shifts staff to focus on patrol; homicides drop

*Police Chief Kathy Lester speaks as members of the department’s Bike Unit win a community service award*

Sacramento, CA (May 16, 2023) - The Sacramento City Police Department will add additional patrol officers in the coming year while holding spending nearly flat and actually reducing the number of sworn positions in the department, Police Chief Kathy Lester told the City Council Tuesday.

In a presentation on the City Manager’s proposed 2023-24 budget, Lester said the department will address a shortage of patrol officers by eliminating 14 non-essential sworn positions to allow 25-30 additional officers to be out on patrol by January 2024. The reductions will include some vacant positions and some officers contracted to hospitals and to Sacramento Regional Transit.

*Grants awarded by the Office of Violence Prevention, which now operates under the Police Department*

“We have reorganized our staffing to better serve the whole city,” Chief Lester said. She added that the reorganization “would make officers more readily available to respond to calls in our community.”

Chief Lester also detailed the department’s efforts to deter violent crime, including gun buybacks, seizures of illegal guns, work with community organizations, community listening sessions, and an increase in officers in the domestic violence unit. The department has reported 10 homicides so far in 2023, less than half of the number reported by this time last year.

Reported shootings declined from 256 in 2021 to 175 in 2022.

The total proposed police budget for the City’s 2023-24 fiscal year is $228 million, a $3.5 million increase over the 2022-2023 budget. The majority of that increase, $2.2 million, is to cover contractual obligations under the CalPERS retirement plan.

Additionally, $1 million of the increase will be used to backfill the American Rescue Plan stimulus funding used by the Office of Violence Prevention in fiscal 2022-23 to partner with community organizations that intervene directly with young people to prevent gang violence. With the stimulus funds exhausted, the city will assume funding the contracts this coming fiscal year.