Mission Viejo has been a contract city from our inception in March of 1988. By that I mean we do not have our own police or fire departments nor do we have our own staff for maintaining our parks and roads.
Included on our next Mission Viejo city council calendar will be a Contract renewal for our Agreement with the OCSD. I would be curious to see comments from bloggers to this post.
We are a 17 square mile city of 100,000 people served by 56 sworn and 10 non sworn deputies. Our Contract renewal, as indicated below, will be just short of $13 million per year.
Not to take anything away from in-house policing such as beach communities like Newport Beach and Laguna Beach, but this bedroom community, contract city, appears to get more “bang for the buck” with this arrangement. Granted there is a big difference between Santa Ana, the city that is also the home of our County seat, and our bedroom community, with virtually no industry or manufacturing to speak of.
Agenda Title
FY 2007-08 Law Enforcement Services Agreement and Additional Law Enforcement Services Provided by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department Delta Unit
Recommended Action
1) Approve the FY 2007-08 Law Enforcement Services Agreement with the County of Orange for an amount not to exceed $12,799,938; and 2) authorize the City Manager to approve reimbursements related to Delta Unit services in an amount not to exceed $65,000 for FY 2007-08.
Executive Summary
Law Enforcement Agreement
The City of Mission Viejo contracts with the County of Orange for the provision of law enforcement services in Mission Viejo. The amended contract amount for law enforcement services during fiscal year 2006-07 was $12,321,026. The County has submitted a proposed Law Enforcement Services Agreement for FY 2007-08 with a total cost of $12,799,938 (an increase of $478,912, or 3.9%, over this year’s agreement).
The proposed Law Enforcement Services Agreement includes no changes in staffing from FY 2006-2007. The Agreement includes a total of 56 sworn officers and 10 non-sworn, for a total of 66 personnel to serve the City of Mission Viejo. The increase in cost over last year’s contract is due to increases in salaries and benefits for management staff, transportation costs, and other operating expenses. In October of each year, the County begins negotiations with the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs (AOCDS) for salaries and benefits. The County has informed the City that that they have yet to conclude the collective bargaining process with AOCDS that was started in October 2006. If needed, staff will bring back any necessary contract and/or budget amendments to the City Council related to the 2006 and 2007 collective bargaining negotiations.
Larry:
The performance of O.C.S.in Mission Viejo is suspect at best. The covering up the multiple car thefts at the Mission Viejo Mall for the second half of 2006 is appalling.
The O.C.S. blithely ignored the multiple campaign sign thefts in October of this year–even after a sitting council member was witnessed by multiple parties stealing a sign.
Best bet would be to hire the Irvine Police ( they have a proven performance record ) to handle policing in Mission Viejo, or form our own city based police force.
There is no doubt the citizens will be better served by either the Irvine Police or a city based police force.
Mission Viejo is big enough to have THEIR OWN police now–not rental cops with an inept leader.
S. G.
sounds high at a cost close to 200k per police employee.
I watched a council meeting were 4 new cops and a code officer were going to cost 500 thousand, that is 100k per employee.
I agree—the Cops in Mission Viejo have an attitude problem . My son plays baseball at the Youth Athletic Park. The COPS make it a practice to ticket cars there even if they are properly parked.
This is just not acceptable–terminate this contract and send them packing
Linda Dee
Tim:
I think it was Lance MacLean who lifted the signs–not your boy in Orange.
Todd
#2 Cook seems to have something as the cost in Santa Ana is about $160k per police employee. Sounds like the bedroom community is paying a premium to avoid setting up a police department – maybe its worth it or maybe they could get a better bid from another department.
Good Comments #6:
Or maybe it is the lazy city council that does not bid this service out.!!
D. Lee
Mission Viejo=200K per police employee
Santa Ana=160K per police employee
Mission Viejo=personal crime risk is 28 (100 is national average)
Santa Ana=personal crime risk is 128 (100 is national average)
You decide
great post larry.
A significant portion of Mission Viejo lies behind private gated communities with private security, so it skews the per capita cost.
With that said, Mission Viejo, along with Dana Point – a resort community – has experienced a +7% increase in Part 1 Crime rates, the HIGHEST INCREASE in South County, followed by RSM with a +3% increase and Aliso Viejo with a +1% increase in Part 1 crimes.
Our neighboring city of Laguna Niguel has seen a -25% DECREASE, Lake Forest and Laguna Hills also reports a DECREASE of -7% and -2% respectfully.
The resort cities of San Clemente and San Juan Capistrano also are experiencing a REDUCTION in crime by -17% and -10%.
You can view the Crime Stats by going to http://www.ocsd.org/ under eServices. Herb Glotz
Responders. You cannot simply divide the total Contract dollars by the numbers indicated above because we also pay a share of the OCSD costs of operating the jails, etc.
Although I would rather be a deputy in Mission Viejo than perhaps other cities their direct compensation is surely not $200,000. And yes, they also earn credit towards their OCSD retirement benefits that is included in the Contract.
I notice that on Art’s post on Santa Anarevenues he show funding for police services at $114 million that is roughly 10 times that of our city (which has roughly one forth the number of residents that live in Santa Ana.)
Great Post on gated areas. So the cost of effective units is even higher–most likely closer to $300,000 per cop.
The cost of the Sheriff is outrageous !!!
Jim Yui
To Linda Dee,
Deputies don’t just cite cars for because they don’t like you or the color of the car. Don’t park in the fire lane, don’t park on the hillside, and keep your cars registration current and up to date and you will not get a citation. It’s YOUR fault if you get a ticket. Take responsibility, you’re an adult. It’s the Deputies job to do what he does. It’s not an attitude problem. Why don’t you talk with him and say Hi, you’ll be quite suprised. And by the way to you all, isn’t MV the SAFEST city for its size. It maybe something to do with the effort the Deputies take everyday, every minute, doing the hardest job that you would not want to do. Think about that.
Mr. Yui, You want to pay for a Kia…or for a Mercedes Benz? Like anything else, you get what you pay for. You would be screaming bloody murder if our fair city was ranked in the middle or high crime rate, but it is not. And it’s not that criminals from L.A. and elsewhere do not come here.
Jim Yui
You need to follow the wisdom of my hero Ron Reagan. “Trust but Verify.” Do not believe everything that a blogger or respondent posts.
Although I live near one of our guarded gate communities, my guess is that perhaps 75 to 80 percent of our homes are not in that category. Therefore your math is way off base.
S.G. Does G stand for Greenwood? If so, have your wife put on the tin foil helmut and grab her ray gun and patrol the streets looking for “hate signs”. While she is at it maybe she can track down Bill Barker. We all know he can’t run very fast. Mission Viejo is the safest City in the state. Why complain?
Larry,
Good question and I’m glad you are fiscally conservative and whan to know if the City of Mission Viejo is getting a good deal by contracting with the Sheriff Department and the simple math gives you your answer.
Mission Viejo is a city of around 98,500 in population with a proposed police services budget of $12,799,938 which equals about $130 per resident. Covered in that cost is the overhead for recruiting, training, workers comp, liability claims, vehicles, equipment, K-9s, SWAT, bomb squad, hostage negotiations, investigations (homicide, sex crimes, fraud investigations, gang enforcement, traffic, etc) juvenile services, helicopters, all included.
The City of Newport Beach has a population of around 80,000, has it own in-house police department with a proposed FY 07/08 police services budget of $41,463,874 which equals about $518 per resident. Their budget does not include workers comp and liability claims, and the City personnel department’s cost and related overhead to other City departments. http://www.city.newport-beach.ca.us/financialinfo/Budget/2008/Budget_Detail_08_Prelim_Revised.pdf
Simple math… Mission Viejo is the 4th safest city in America. Newport Beach has the 28th highest Part 1 (serious) crime rate of Orange County’s 34 cities.
Mission Viejo is getting a fantastic bargain in my opinion, what do you think?