Folsom City Council adds community officers to Police Department amid staffing concerns

Folsom City Council voted at the end of February to add two community service officer positions to its police department.

A community service officer cannot respond to calls involving violence or where suspects are present, according to Folsom Police Chief Rick Hillman. He said they would be able to be the primary responder to 35% of calls during their work time.

Each position offers a $57,790 salary and $46,232 in benefits and would cost the city a total of $208,044 a year, according to a presentation Hillman gave to the council on Jan. 24.

“Our CSOs wear different color uniform(s) and drive vehicles that look different than officers’,” Hillman said via email. “They are still sometimes seen as police officers. Our CSOs are good telling people about the differences of jobs when asked.”

Officers won’t fix larger staffing issue, police say

Hillman said in the five years since becoming chief, he has asked the council for additional staffing each year to keep up with growing call volume and population growth. Since then, the city has added two sworn officers.

“We once had an approved officer staffing of 93 officers with a population around (70,000),” Hillman said. “We now are approved for 80 officers with a population that has increased to 85,000. We need more police officers to keep up with the growing demands of our expanding community.”

Although the department is approved for 80 officers, it has eight vacancies, three recruits in an academy and a couple of officers on long-term leave, according to Hillman.

“Our reality is an active sworn staffing of 67,” he said.

Hillman said he would rather have sworn police officers than CSOs, but the decision is a mid-year budget adjustment and “and I’m happy to have any staffing rather than none.”

The community service positions aim to relieve some of the officers’ workload, freeing up police officers for proactive patrolling with the goal of lowering response times, according to the department.

“The action the council took is their decision. I support any action,” he said. “They were informed of budget concerns and still chose to add staffing.”

Council divided on new jobs

The City Council’s 3-2 decision to add the community service positions came from a motion by the council’s newest member, Anna Rohrbough, who represents neighborhoods north of East Bidwell Street.

Vice Mayor YK Chalamcherla and Councilman Mike Kozlowski joined Rohrbough in passing the motion.

“The stress upon the Police Department right at this moment and their ability to patrol effectively the entire city I think warrants the addition of these two positions to provide them a little bit of relief,” Kozlowski said at the Feb. 28 council meeting. “It’s worthwhile to do it now rather than later.”

Mayor Rosario Rodriguez and Councilwoman Sarah Aquino dissented, saying the council should wait until the finance director releases a budget prediction in the next few weeks to determine how many sworn police officers, instead of community service officers, the city can afford.

“All of us up here are definitely pro-blue people,” Rodriguez said from the dais. “We want to see our Police Department staffed accordingly ... all we’re saying is wait. We’re telling the Police Department that we want to give you something that’s going to limit your ability to be able to do effective policing in the city of Folsom.”

During her campaign, Rohrbough said Folsom’s public safety services have lacked resources through many budget cycles and that she would immediately put plans into action to increase safety.

Hillman said a posting for the position is currently open, but does not anticipate hiring additional CSOs until July because the department’s testing, selection and background process takes several months.

This story was originally published March 14, 2023 at 11:21 AM.