San Francisco needs almost 2,200 officers to staff the city safely, and we are short over 500. On top of that, we have nearly 350 current officers who are eligible for full retirement. So not only are we missing one-third of our police force, we have a wave of known retirements coming in the next several years.
D6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey has proposed a charter amendment for the March 2024 ballot that would do the following things:
- Reestablish a minimum full staffing number in the charter at 2,182 sworn officers.
- Create a full staffing fund that would set aside an amount of money for every unfilled position underneath that applicable full staffing number for that year.
- Offer $75,000 signing bonuses to match other Bay Area departments
Many things need to be done in the short, medium, and long term to get ourselves out of this hole. If you support this measure in March, starting July 1, we will have a recruitment full staffing fund with $16 million ready to go, with a plan of short and long-term solutions that will begin digging us out of this problem.
Say yes to full police staffing to bring San Francisco back to the safe and innovative city we all love!
Fill out the form below to send an email to the entire Board of Supervisors.
*The approval of six supervisors is needed to put a Charter Amendment on the ballot. It's critical that we urge all supervisors to support this!*
A timeline of SFPD Staffing:
1994: The Board of Supervisors put Prop D on the ballot and when passed by the voters it established a minimum staffing number of 1,971 full-duty sworn officers for SFPD.
2020: Prop E was passed and replaced the 1994 Prop D with a process whereby every two years, the department would undertake a process to determine what the actual workload was for the SFPD based on several factors in the city: population, level of crime, major events, etc.
2020: The Mayor removed $120 million over two years from the department's budget, creating other challenges for SFPD.
2021: The first Prop E report was published in 2021 and said that we needed 2,192 full-duty sworn officers to adequately protect San Franciscans and provide all the services needed from the police department.
2022 - 23: SPFD staffing reaches crisis levels due to many factors, including an anti-law enforcement political environment, small academy classes, officers leaving for employment in other cities, retirements, high cost of living in the area, and national trends. Restoring money to the SFPD budget and funding overtime pay is only a bandaid.
It’s time to support Supervisor Dorsey’s SFPD Staffing Charter Amendment. Send a prewritten email to the Board of Supervisors below!