The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper Officer shortage may impede Avoid the 13 campaign By Justin Berton A recent shortage in the number of Sunnyvale Public Safety officers may have an impact on the 25th annual Avoid the 13 campaign, which is scheduled to kick off next week. With a rash of injuries, a few retirements and a notoriously long recruitment time, the Sunnyvale department currently has seven positions open--all of which has the other 221 healthy officers working loads of overtime, and complaining of fatigue. "It's going to make it hard to have the staffing to make the Avoid the 13 happen," said Kelly Fitzgerald, president of the Sunnyvale Public Safety Officers' Association. "The majority of the group [of officers] have reached a crisis point," Fitzgerald said of the overtime hours. "So many officers are working so many hours, it begins to take a toll on your family life." A regular shift for a public safety officer, Fitzgerald said, was 10 hours a day for four days a week. In November alone, officers pre-scheduled an unusually high 1,000 hours of overtime, if no one was to call in sick, he added. "Most of the guys now are working five and six days a week. They are working 12-to-15 hour days to make up for the shortage," Fitzgerald said. Police Chief Regan Williams said Sunnyvale is suffering what many other departments throughout the state are experiencing: a drought in qualified applicants. Added to that is a spate of unexpected injuries. "This is not unique to Sunnyvale," Williams said. "It's just that it all hit at the same time." Currently the department is looking to fill seven positions, and 13 officers are out due to injury. But, Williams pointed out, 17 people are now going through the training process, which takes longer than most departments due Sunnyvale's unique combination of fire and police services. Williams said most trainees--those who have not served as a fireman or police officer at another department--must complete both academies, which takes up to 11 months, compared to seven at single-task departments. Still, Fitzgerald blamed poor recruiting techniques in the past for limiting the number of officers hired today. "While we don't want them to lower standards, they have to recruit more people by sheer numbers, to bump up the number of candidates," Fitzgerald said. "Two or three years of not recruiting enough people finally catches up with you." Williams said the department has become more aggressive in its recruiting techniques recently. In years past, he said, the department would hire from a pool once a year. Now the department takes applications on a rotating schedule, increasing the pool of applicants. Last month, in the regular meeting between management and the union, solutions to the officer shortage was a key issue on the agenda. To help offset the increasing overtime of patrol officers, Williams and the association agreed to shuffle around responsibilities to ease the overtime crunch. Officers who were once delegated strictly to special assignments now split time with patrol officers. Williams expected that with the return of injured officers, combined with trained recruits, the department should be fully staffed by September of next year. But for the immediate future, the Avoid the 13 question still looms in the air. Traditionally, officers from the Sunnyvale department have shined during the anti-drunk-driving campaign, said Jan Ford, public information director for Avoid the 13. "Sunnyvale is head and shoulders above other departments," Ford said. "It's quite a number of drunk drivers they keep off the road." For the past two years, Sunnyvale Public Safety officer Rick Stagner has led all officers in the 13 local departments with a combined total of 50 arrests. Williams said the department has allocated 300 overtime hours to the Avoid the 13 campaign in the past, but could be hard-pressed to meet that goal this year. "I don't want to suggest we won't be able to participate--we certainly will be able to participate," Williams said, "but if we need overtime to staff the street, that will be our priority." "We're working with the association, and we're doing everything we can," Williams added. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, December 9, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.