Local police department calls for staffing solutions

The El Centro Police Department is facing staffing issues that some are calling a potential crisis.

We spoke to city officials on what limitations the department is facing and the plan to fix it.

The police officers association recently made a presentation to the city expressing their concerns.

“We’ve reached a staffing level where we can no longer maintain a quality of service for our community,” said James Thompson, President of Police Officers Association.

Staffing is low at the police department and they are facing an overtime budget cut of $300,000.

“The past years we haven’t had enough officers to staff the streets, so a lot of time, overtime is what supplements our patrol,” added Thompson.

“There’s no standard in law enforcement, but using just a 1.5 officers per thousand population, we probably should be in the numbers of 70. Were at 52 but unfortunately for this coming year they’re freezing three positions so we are down to 49,” said Chief Eddie Madueno of The El Centro Police Dept.

Police officials say it ultimately comes down to the level of service the city wants to provide.

The mayor says the city is aware of the concerns and how compensation for officers may play a role.

“It’s extremely challenging to compete with state and federal law enforcement, and so us being a municipality of only $33 million dollar operating budget, it’s tough to compete with state and federal recruitment,” said Alex Cardenas, Mayor of the city of El Centro.

The police officers association has called for an emergency meeting that will take place Wednesday.

A rough proposal will be given to human resources and they are hoping to have a package issued to city council 30 days after.

“One supervisor and four officers is barely enough to handle the calls that we are receiving, if I could put six or seven officers on a team, they could be more proactive. So it is going to depend on the level of service they we want to give our community,” added Madueno.