(Photo by Nha Ha)
Laura Pezzini
lpezzini@mustangdaily.net
University Police Department (UPD) Chief George Hughes has seen quite a bit of change in the eight months he has worked at Cal Poly.
“I’ve been here for eight months,” Hughes said. “In that time, we’ve had six openings, and those were all due to retirements.”
The most recent personnel change was the addition of commander Brenda Trobaugh in April, after former commander Lori Hashim retired in December.
“I came from a very busy city,” Trobaugh said. “Coming here, it’s very refreshing to meet very friendly people. You couldn’t ask for a better place, it’s like paradise.”
Before coming to Cal Poly, Trobaugh was a sergeant for the city of Fresno. Hughes said Trobaugh is already an essential part of UPD’s operations.
“She’s an excellent addition,” Hughes said. “She comes with a tremendous amount of training and experience in various fields in law enforcement, so she will be a tremendous asset to us and to the campus community.”
The other retirements include the chief prior to Hughes as well as two sergeants and two officers. Hughes said because the chief and commander positions have now been filled, UPD is currently working on hiring new officers.
“We are currently recruiting and hiring for both of the open officer positions, and once we hire them, we’ll do an internal promotion process to replace the two open sergeant positions,” Hughes said.
And there may be even more developments on the horizon — the Statewide University Police Association (SUPA), which represents police departments at the California State University (CSU) campuses, is currently in negotiations with the CSU regarding officer pay and benefits.
“We haven’t received a raise in over seven years now, and we’re having officers leaving all over the state,” SUPA president Jeff Solomon said.
SUPA and the CSU Board of Trustees met this past week to discuss pay rates and benefits for university police officers, but the negotiations are currently at a standstill.
“We are at an impasse,” CSU director of media relations Mike Uhlenkamp said. “We are waiting for the state to appoint a mediator to continue the negotiations.”
SUPA is asking the CSU to implement guaranteed step raises for university police officers, in part to maintain the current officers as well as to attract others.
“It’s very difficult to keep people,” Solomon said. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel for our officers.”
In response, the CSU is unable to guarantee the funds that would be necessary for the pay and benefits SUPA has requested.
“What we have proposed is to maintain the status quo on the contracts,” Uhlenkamp said. “One of the things you have to consider is that despite the news of the state budget looking up, we are still at the same budget.”
Solomon said the next step is for the state to put together a fact-finding report to more fully delineate the reasoning behind SUPA’s requests.
“We’ll present our case of how bad the conditions are, how bad our pay is, how many officers have left and how much crime is on our campuses,” Solomon said. “The CSU doesn’t want a fact-finding report to come out because it will show that we are the last agency in the state that does not get automatic step raises.”
Hughes said the outcome of these negotiations have the power to impact the UPD budget, but the department is not directly involved with the discussions.
“We’re not directly involved with the discussions because SUPA is discussing that with the CSU system,” Hughes said. “We don’t negotiate contract issues, we don’t negotiate salaries, we don’t negotiate these pay increases that they’re asking for.”
UPD is comprised of two sectors — the administrative division covers matters such as parking, budget and special events, while the operations division is more of the traditional police force which manages crime.
“The commander and myself are at the administrative level, and then under that we have two sergeants that are the direct supervisors over our line-level officers, who you commonly come into contact with out on the street,” Hughes said.
Hughes said UPD has been able to maintain a high level of operation even through the retirements and additions to the department.
“Even though six people have left and we’re replacing those six, we still have done a very good job providing police services to the campus community,” Hughes said. “We’re a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation, and we always have a minimum of at least one person on campus.”
As far as improving the department, Hughes said he wants to emphasize communication between UPD and the student body.
“We can always improve in a lot of things we do,” Hughes said. “What I want to try to do is communicate with the student body a little bit better.”
After eight months at Cal Poly, Hughes said his ultimate focus is still to maintain a good relationship between UPD and Cal Poly students.
“We want to work with (the students), we want to be more than just a police department,” Hughes said. “We don’t want to be seen as just enforcers of the law on campus. We’re here to provide a safe and secure learning environment.”