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Were Councilwoman Stacy Mungo's Statements To ELB Neighborhood Residents About LB's Police Level, Police Academy Graduation Rate And Police Academy Applicants Accurate? Here's What We Found


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(Sept. 13, 2016, 7:55 a.m.) -- As previously reported by LBREPORT.com, on September 7, 2016, 5th dist. Councilwoman Stacy Mungo stated the following at a grassroots-organized meeting of roughly 100-150 ELB neighborhood-crime-weary residents from areas stretching from El Dorado Park South to the Spring St./Palo Verde Plaza area:

Councilwoman Mungo: "The reason we have the number of officers we have is not because we have a budget issue. The City Council continues to authorize the Police Department to hire police officers but you may have noticed that it is not very popular to be a police officer in America today. Our applications to be a police officer are down almost 80%. We just came through an Academy and when we put through 50 recruits, the quality of people who are applying to be police officers has declined and I don't know about you, but I'm not going to ride in a car, ask someone to respond who's not prepared to be a police officer. And of the 50, only 25 graduated."

Is these statements true?

[Scroll down for further.]

The numbers are below factual matters. Our source was the Long Beach Police Department. We asked its media relations office for information and it professionally provided it. We also cited information available on the public record and indicate it as such.

We're not accusing Councilwoman Mungo of deliberately misstating facts, although we do say that she misstated and mangled them. If we didn't report what she said (as we did) and fact-checked what she said, we doubt this story would be told and the record corrected.

Councilwoman Mungo's Chief of Staff told us in an email last night (11 p.m. hour Sept. 12): "I believe that during last Wednesday's meeting Councilwoman Mungo repeated what she had heard from Police Department personnel and she is currently working with PD to clarify such figures and to ensure she is properly informed."

We presume the Councilwoman will stand corrected based on the LBPD figures we cite below.

As to our opinions below, they are just that...and reasonable people can agree or disagree with them. We welcome our comments/opinions 24/7 via Disqus, Facebook and moderate length letters and longer-form op-ed pieces submitted to us at mail@LBReport.com.

By way of context, Police Academy classes don't "add" police officers; they simply replenish police officers as they retire or otherwise exit. The City's budgeted number of police officers is set by the City Council. LBPD can't deploy what the Council hasn't budgeted LBPD to employ.

  • Police Academy Recruit Class #89 is currently in session. It began on March 31, 2016 and Graduation ceremonies will occur on September 22, 2016. Class #89 began with 50 recruits. 37 recruits are expected to graduate. That's an attrition rate of 26%, and a graduation rate of 74%.

    On this basis, we conclude that Councilwoman Mungo's statement that only half of the most recent LBPD police academy class graduated isn't accurate.

  • Recruit Applications Received:

    • Class #88 (graduated November 5, 2015 and currently in field training) = 2,010
    • Class #89 = (currently in session, graduates Sept. 22, 2016) = 2,858
    • Class #90 (begins September 29, 2016) = 1,097
    • Class #91 (processing; scheduled to begin May 2017) = 1,826
    • [From contemporaneous news accounts elsewhere] Class #88 began with 45 recruits [unclear if this figure includes a couple of recruits trained for Gardena PD]; Class 88 ended up producing 33 LBPD sworn officers, for an attrition rate of roughly 26-29% depending on how one calculates it.]

On this basis, we conclude that Councilwoman Mungo's statement that "our applications to be a police officer are down almost 80%" is numerically inaccurate, and while her point (that applications are down) is basically correct, it is -- in our opinion -- a diversion from the real issue.

Yes, applications are "down" for the most recent starting academy class by a sizable 61% from the immediately previous class...but that's measuring applications from the class that preceded it which were up by 42% from its immediately preceding class. The application figures appear to be oscillating...and this is irrelevant to the real reason why LB's police level is as thin as it now is.

In our opinion, what Councilwoman Mungo was attempting to do was diversionary -- in debate called pettifoggery -- an attempt to raise a diversionary point to try and shift attention from the pesky real issue that the speaker wants to avoid.

The truth is, LB taxpayers have a thin police level now because of voted budget actions of Long Beach City Councils starting in FY10 (when Garcia joined the Council) and continuing through FYs 11 (over dissents from Councilmember Schipske, Gabelich, Neal, all now exited), FY12, FY13, FY14, FY15 and FY16. (Garcia became non-voting Mayor in mid-July 2014 and recommended budgets in FY15, 16 and now 17.).

Councilwoman Mungo has been part of the Council for over two years; she took office mid-July 2014. Candidate Mungo told voters that she is a Reserve County Sheriff and portrayed herself as reliable on neighborhood safety and public safety issues.

Once in office, Councilwoman Mungo was among Councils that voted without dissent to approve budgets for FY 15 and 16 that left Long Beach taxpayers with roughly 200 fewer officers for citywide deployment than taxpayers had in FY10. LB's currently budgeted police level for citywide deployment is now roughly equivalent per capita to what Los Angeles would have if it cut roughly 30% of its LAPD officers.

For any Long Beach Councilmember (Mungo or others) to pretend that Long Beach taxpayers don't have more officers because the City can't find enough qualified applicants is our opinion simply the latest LB City Hall excuse for shortchanging the taxpaying public on public safety; it's basically self-serving and not public serving...and we urge Councilmembers to begin turning things for taxpayers around for taxpayers instead of continuing to march down the wrong road.

LBREPORT.com will carry LIVE today's meeting of the Council's Budget Oversight Committee -- chaired by Mungo, with Committee members Price and Austin -- starting at 4:00 p.m. That Council Committee will recommend, but can't dictate, proposed budget changes to the full City Council, which begins meeting at 5:00 p.m.

Councilwoman Mungo's Committee has no power to decide what motions other Councilmembers may or may not make on this or other budget matters...but its voted recommendations (obviously) come with three affirmative Council votes and need only two more votes to carry.

All Councilmembers have co-equal votes and can make motions to change what the Mayor/Management, or the Budget Oversight Committee, recommend. It takes five (of nine) Council votes to enact, and six to override a Mayoral veto if he chooses to make one thereafter.


Information on Academy Class 88 added at 8:32 a.m.

Opinions expressed by LBREPORT.com, our contributors and/or our readers are not necessary those of our advertisers. We welcome our readers' comments/opinions 24/7 via Disqus, Facebook and moderate length letters and longer-form op-ed pieces submitted to us at mail@LBReport.com.

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