The Oakland Police Department 38 added police officers to its force Friday, beefing up the department's ranks to a record-high of 837 officers, the Oakland Tribune reports.
"This has been a historic achievement, a tremendous amount of work to get to this point, to finally get to the 803 officers mandated in 2004 by the voters in Measure Y, and even going beyond that to 837," said Mayor Ron Dellums after (Friday's) graduation ceremony ... "In reality, we don't have money to employ officers beyond 803," he told reporters. "At a minimum, we're looking at postponing the next academy and saving a significant amount of money that way. But there comes a point where that money goes away."
Click here for the full Tribune story.
Sacramento and Oakland provide an interesting contrast in terms of comparing police departments, especially as cities grapple with thorny budget issues. Sacramento is the state's seventh-largest city, Oakland is the state's eighth largest city.
Last month in a mayoral election story focusing on public safety, Bee reporter Ryan Lillis provided these public safety statistical comparisons between California cities with similar populations:
BUDGET 2008-09 IN MILLIONS
CITY / POLICE
Long Beach / $193.3
Oakland / $192.4
Fresno / $139.3
Sacramento / $131.6CITY / FIRE
Oakland / $108.2
Sacramento / $97.4
Long Beach / $73.1
Fresno / $47.4
Source: Cities' budget officesCITY / POPULATION / PERCENTAGE OF GENERAL FUND SPENT ON POLICE AND FIRE
Fresno / 472,170 / 68%
Long Beach / 473,959 / 66%
Oakland / 396,541 / 63%
Sacramento / 460,546 / 54%
Source: FBI data, 2007CITY / POPULATION / POLICE OFFICERS / OFFICERS PER 1,000
Long Beach / 473,959 / 970 / 2.05
Oakland / 396,541 / 722 / 1.82
Fresno / 472,170 / 817 / 1.73
Sacramento / 460,546 / 712 / 1.55
Source: FBI data, 2007CITY / POPULATION / VIOLENT CRIMES / VIOLENT CRIME RATE PER 100,000
Oakland / 396,541 / 7,605 / 1,917.8
Sacramento / 460,546 / 5,128 / 1,113.5
Long Beach / 473,959 / 3,426 / 722.8
Fresno / 472,170 / 3,043 / 644.5
Source: FBI data, 2007CITY / POPULATION / PROPERTY CRIMES / PROPERTY CRIME RATE PER 100,000
Oakland / 396,541 / 23,664 / 5,967.6
Sacramento / 460,546 / 24,399 / 5,297.8
Fresno / 472,170 / 20,969 / 4,441.0
Long Beach / 473,959 / 12,979 / 2,738.4
Source: FBI data, 2007CITY / FIRE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES
Sacramento / 634
Oakland / 596
Long Beach / 580
Fresno / 453
Source: Cities' budget offices; Bee research by Ryan Lillis
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