SAN FRANCISCO—According to reports, an anticipated shift of the San Francisco Police Department’s command staff has not changed after Chief William Scott called for more resumes from the department’s leadership.
At a staff meeting on Thursday, February 23, Scott announced that he plans to expand an increasingly expensive configuration and continue an ongoing hiring endeavor to replenish ranks. A new organization and expansion detailed in a chart from the SFPD from January 24, will cost San Francisco more than $10 million in salaries.
The department has a staff of almost 3,000 individuals, including five deputy chiefs, seven commanders and 32 captains. According to the SFPD staff bulletin, the SFPD’s fiscal division currently has four sub-sections under fiscal management.
Under former SFPD Police Chief Greg Suhr, who resigned in May 2016, there were five commanders, 30 captains, and no assistant chiefs. Never before had there been a command staff so large without positions such as assistant chiefs, said sources with a connection to the department.
“This new structure is about organizational effectiveness and putting a team in place that will give SFPD the best chance as an organization to implement the reforms in a successful and a sustainable way,” said the head of the department’s media relations division in a recent statement.
“This organizational structure will give us the best chance of successfully accomplishing these goals. Additional appointments will be made to fill vacancies in the weeks to come.”
In addition to the recently implemented commander positions, the department is still searching for a new captain of special projects who will work under former Acting Chief Toney Chaplin, who has since been made an assistant chief.
According to the SFPD Salary and Benefits bulletin, the average officer’s starting salary is roughly $80,000.
