Public Safety Reports

Police Operations and Data Analysis Report, Morgan Hill, California

Section 7. Projecting Future Staffing Needs

As previously noted, one of the objectives of this work is to recommend benchmarks for staffing

increases. To do so involves a complex and inexact science influenced by community priorities,

needs, expectations, desires, and the city’s ability to fund these sometimes conflicting elements. One

must only look to the Morgan Hill City Council Ongoing Priorities of “Enhancing public safety,

Protecting the environment, Maintaining fiscal responsibility, Supporting youth, Fostering a

positive organizational culture, and Preserving and cultivating public trust” to understand the

competing interests and complex elements that will influence the city’s decision making in

determining the appropriate staffing level for its police department.

As well, no formula exists as a universally accepted industry standard of measurement in

determining how many officers/civilians a police department must have to operate efficiently. Nor

would any truly stand the test of scrutiny given that communities have so many competing

priorities, and service demands can unpredictably fluctuate. As a simple example, while the

population of Morgan Hill steadily increased over the past 10 years, the city saw dramatic decreases

in violent crime rates, and police activities fluctuated wildly, up and down, from year to year. For

instance, the department reported 39,307 police activities in 2009, which then dropped to 32,131

activities in 2011. Police activity numbers have continued to fluctuate annually, but remain

somewhat below the 2009 numbers through 2015. Nonetheless, we will endeavor to provide a

staffing formula that we believe will serve Morgan Hill well as it considers the desired functionality

and capacity of its police department into the future.

CPSM does not suggest that this or any formula must be utilized to maintain an effective police

department. The formula that we will provide below, and as was discussed extensively in this

report, is simply intended to assist the city of Morgan Hill in measuring the police department

workload, and thus the available time for officers to engage in proactive/preventive/ problem-

solving policing. For

“Community Policing”

efforts to be effective, it is essential to have that

uncommitted time where officers are not responding to service demands.

To do so, we begin with the department’s current capacity to perform the functions that are

expected of a full-service police department. We specifically focused on data associated with patrol

workload. This is the most reliable data source as a nexus exists between patrol workload and all

other functions of the department, including detectives, records, communications, and

administration. As well, rarely does any other function of the department capture data as

comprehensively as the computer-aided dispatch system, which records all communicated changes

in the activity status of each patrol unit.

As was reported upon extensively in the operations assessment of the Field Operations Division,

Section 3, CPSM relied upon the

Rule of 60

to measure the department’s capacity to handle the 2015

workload specific to patrol operations. As well, examination of other major functions of the

department, that is, Detectives, Records, and Communications, were conducted to assess the

efficiency and effectiveness of those functions to adequately handle workload within each. Based

upon our evaluation, CPSM provided recommendations for staffing and organizational changes to