Staffing problems are making it harder for OPD to provide the public with important documents, data, and more.
by Eli Wolfe Feb. 21, 2024, 2:02 p.m. Feb. 21, 2024, 4:56 p.m.
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Many people need records from the Oakland Police Department. When someone breaks into a car, the victim often requests a police report to file an insurance claim. Law enforcement agencies need old case records to investigate cold cases. Journalists seek emails to learn about policy decisions that affect residents. Lawyers want body camera footage to pursue wrongful death lawsuits. Academics are looking for data to study and describe trends in police procedures.
Processing those records requests is one of the most important things OPD does as a department. However, OPD is currently struggling to respond to these requests, according to city officials.
At a recent public meeting, OPD staff reported that the department receives an average of over 800 new requests for records every month, more than any other city department. OPD can complete many new requests but the backlog of unfulfilled and delayed responses is growing.
As of January, the department had over 700 “open” requests, meaning they’ve yet to hand over documents to the person seeking them, and nearly 450 of these are overdue. Under state law, government agencies, including OPD have 10 days to respond when someone asks for public records. In unusual circumstances, the city can ask for a short extension of time, and if the records are very hard to find and require redaction—the removal of confidential information—it can take longer.
Department officials say OPD receives more requests than other neighboring law enforcement agencies, partly because of city policies that put a premium on transparency.
“No one comes close to the Oakland Police Department,” said Deputy Director Kiona Suttle, referring to the volume of requests.
In 2021, the Oakland Public Ethics Commission reported that OPD was the recipient of 58% of all public records requests in Oakland but accounted for 88% of all open requests. The commission is currently studying Oakland’s handling of public records requests and invited OPD, along with two other high-volume departments, to explain how things are going.
OPD representatives met with the commission in January and told the board they are falling behind on requests mainly because the department’s records division is understaffed and failing to hire for budgeted positions. The records division has 26 budgeted police records specialists, but nine of those positions were vacant as of mid-February.
“Inadequate staffing has significantly impacted the efficiency of responding to (records requests), resulting in delays, backlog accumulations, and increased response times,” Suttle said.
Suttle said if the division was fully staffed, the department would have seven police records specialists working on records requests during the week, but currently only has an average of two doing this job at any given time. Suttle also noted that even if the division was fully staffed, it would be difficult to have seven specialists solely dedicated to public records requests given competing priorities.
Suttle said the department has struggled to get applicants to take the records specialist job, even when it’s offered to them. During a February 13 council meeting, Suttle noted that candidates have gone through the background process and received job offers, only to balk when they were assigned the graveyard or swing shift hours.
“That has been a huge challenge when trying to fill the police records specialist role,” Suttle said. In other cases, people have taken the job and complained after a couple months that they can’t work the late shifts.
The records division is a 24/7 operation because it processes time-sensitive records, including subpoenas and warrants, which can come in at any hour of the day. Suttle said OPD has been clear about the potential hours for the records specialist role in advertising and recruitment materials.
Department policy prevents records specialists from working remotely, and Suttle said the department is struggling to compete with employers who can offer this option. Suttle said that records specialists make between $54,000 and $72,000.
Employees in the records division also provide administrative support throughout OPD, creating competing demands. Suttle noted that specialists who work on records requests may also be assigned to work with internal affairs, process warrants, or serve as points of contact for members of the public when their vehicles are towed.
As of February, the department had six records specialist candidates whose backgrounds were being checked, and several were hired over the last two months. Suttle said she was “shocked” by the low number of people who applied for the position, noting that the department received hundreds of applications for these jobs in the past.
OPD Police Records Supervisor Alisha Banda told the ethics commission that her division can respond relatively quickly to some requests. She referred to crime reports for things like stolen cars and burglaries as “low-hanging fruit” that her staff can complete quickly. Reviewing and releasing less than 30 minutes of footage from a body camera takes at least 45 days, she said.
Banda noted that the department’s average response time gets skewed by complex or overly broad requests, like if someone asks for every department email from the last decade that includes the word “citation.”
“Those are the requests that get us hung up,” Banda said.
Members of the public have a right to ask for any public records generated by the city of Oakland. That right is guaranteed by the California Public Records Act and the Oakland Sunshine Ordinance. City departments like OPD can assert legal reasons to not release certain information, but the default is for public agencies to release everything.
Banda said police departments in Hayward, Pinole, Richmond, and Berkeley request a fee for certain reports, whereas Oakland does not. Commissioner Charlotte Hill asked if OPD had considered imposing a small fee on processing records to deter some people from filing requests. Department representatives said this idea was discussed with the city attorney’s office several years ago but never implemented.
Banda told the commission she works approximately 15 hours of overtime every weekend to read all the records requests sent to OPD. Suttle said the overtime work is putting staff at risk of burnout.
“I literally work seven days a week, there’s no way to accomplish what we do without working overtime,” Suttle said.
One potential solution floated by OPD representatives is to amend the department’s records retention policy, a set of rules for how long OPD keeps certain kinds of records and when they can be permanently destroyed. Banda told the ethics commission that OPD has records dating back to 1921. Few other agencies boast a catalogue of records this old, and officials said it makes OPD a frequent target of requests from agencies seeking records for cold cases. In January, Banda said the department had approximately 150 requests from law enforcement agencies for records that were 80 to 100 years old.
The City Council recently agreed to update Oakland’s rules for how long the city keeps records. But the council postponed changing the city’s policies around retaining police records after Council President Nikki Fortunato Bas asked the city administrator to bring back a separate proposal for police materials.
During the February 13 public safety meeting, Reid underscored the importance of OPD figuring out how to better staff its records division, noting that she’s heard from community members who have been waiting for several months for a response to their records requests.
“The community is seeking to just understand how we’re prioritizing to expedite response and updates and status of those positions,” Reid said.
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Eli Wolfe reports on City Hall for The Oaklandside. He was previously a senior reporter for San José Spotlight, where he had a beat covering Santa Clara County’s government and transportation. He also worked as an investigative reporter for the Pasadena-based newsroom FairWarning, where he covered labor, consumer protection and transportation issues. He started his journalism career as a freelancer based out of Berkeley. Eli’s stories have appeared in The Atlantic, NBCNews.com, Salon, the San Francisco Chronicle, and elsewhere. Eli graduated from UC Santa Cruz and grew up in San Francisco.
