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Police Operations and Data Analysis Report, Morgan Hill, California
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Administrative Sergeant
An administrative sergeant position reporting to the Special Operations captain was established in
the department approximately 18 months ago. The intent of this position was two-fold: to provide
administrative assistance to the command staff and to relieve line sergeants of some of their
administrative tasks. The implementation of this position saw a slow transition, with tasks and
assignments gradually added to the assigned sergeant. Along with various administrative tasks
assigned by the command staff, the administrative sergeant now handles training, including the
field training program, a majority of the administrative investigations, fleet management and
maintenance, Lexipol policy development and maintenance, various permit approvals, and assigned
special projects. The sergeant’s collateral duties include weapons training and range management,
and assisting the Support Services Captain with recruiting and hiring.
This is an extensive list of duties, some of which are critical functions of any police department.
Critical functions include the training and field training program responsibilities, policy
development and maintenance, internal affairs investigations, and employment services, to name
some of the more significant. The demands of these critical functions, as well as other
administrative duties expected of this position, exceed the capacity of any one person. Many of the
critical functions are generally functions of a Professional Standards Unit. In the following section,
we will address this issue further.
Additionally, in Section 3, we discussed the need for an administrative sergeant in the Field
Operations Division to allow for patrol sergeants to spend more time in the field. While this was an
objective of the creation of the administrative sergeant position 18 months ago, the workload of
this position clearly did not allow for sufficient administrative duties to be transferred here from
the patrol sergeants, thereby freeing up their time to direct operations from the field.
Therefore, as has been addressed and will be addressed in the future, we recommend that a new
unit, Professional Standards, be created and staffed with a new FTE sergeant position. We also
recommend that the administrative sergeant position presently assigned to Special Operations be
transferred to the Field Operations Division, along with appropriate administrative tasks.
Recommendation:
CPSM recommends that the Administrative Sergeant position be reassigned to the Field
Operations Division and duties modified to provide administrative support as appropriate
to enable patrol sergeants to more effectively direct patrol operations.
Professional Standards (Recommended)
Law enforcement agencies have developed professional standards units to better manage
department-wide essential support services that maintain high standards of ethics and
professionalism in the areas of recruitment, hiring, personnel records maintenance, labor relations,
human resource management, policy development, training, administrative investigations, and use-