Pensions are main reason for
slowing police response times
by John Seiler | August 28, 2026
One of the reasons to be vigilant about excessive police compensation is because it ironically can crowd out funds for adequate numbers of officers. As cities enter a period of mounting budget deficits, that tradeoff will become even more severe. When personnel costs consume a growing share of municipal budgets, fewer dollars remain to hire and retain rank-and-file officers, leaving vacancies unfilled and response times to climb.
One study I’m using for this article is a 2025 staffing report by the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a major lobby group for higher police compensation. The report concluded, “Fewer officers mean less law enforcement availability to respond to calls, forcing departments to prioritize only the most urgent cases, leaving less urgent, but still devastating crimes, like vandalism or burglary, with extensive wait times.”
Response times growing, but union policies the culprit
PORAC is right about response times. In San Diego, the city’s adopted budget for fiscal year 2025-26 listed average times to arrive for these types of calls. Although response times remain under seven minutes for Priority 0 crimes that involve an imminent loss of life or property, its response times for other types of calls vastly exceed the city’s goals. If your car was vandalized, a Priority 3 call, you could get upset your tax dollars paid for an officer response taking almost three hours.
The Long Beach Post in August 2024 recounted a story where it took police nearly four hours to respond to a break in at a local shop after the owner noticed a shattered front door. A Post analysis of Long Beach city data found police response times have worsened sharply over three years. The culprit: the department has 155 vacancies, about 20% of its force. Response times for second- and third-priority calls, including theft and arson, increased by more than 20 minutes between 2021 and 2024.
In Oakland, an October 2025 report by City Auditor Michael C. Houston found the city’s Police Emergency Communications Center failed state 911 response targets in 2024 because of understaffing. It’s a similar story in other California cities. In Sacramento, KCRA3 reported in June 2025 officer “shortages are already affecting the community, with calls for emergency services increasingly delayed.” Dustin Smith, president of the Sacramento Police Officers Association, said the city’s 639 officers are short the 1,050 needed for a city its size.
However, PORAC and other unions don’t address why those vacancies persist — and why they are likely to become even harder to fill as city finances deteriorate. Why exactly are police agencies facing staffing shortages?
A Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research report from 2018 pointed to something known as pension “crowd out” — cities’ increasing pension payments are crowding out their budgets and reducing the money they have to pay for public services: “Employer pension contributions (i.e., pension contributions plus debt service on any Pension Obligation Bonds) from 2002-03 to 2017-18 expanded on average 400%, i.e., contributions in nominal dollars are now five times greater.” That means they have less money to pay for more police officers. The problem has grown worse since then and is expected to continue escalating.
Pensions are one key problem
Staffing shortages often are treated as a recruiting problem. Increasingly, they’re becoming a budget problem. Cities cannot hire officers they cannot afford, regardless of how many qualified applicants exist.
The PORAC study blamed “Negative Views of Law Enforcement…. Higher Attrition Rates & Early Departures…. Lengthy Recruitment Processes.” Perhaps those are factors, and can be addressed. But PORAC ignored the elephant in the room.
A February 2025 Reason Foundation article explained that excessive pensions are exploding budgets. It noted, “Frustratingly, San Diego’s fiscal conundrum was largely addressed by a voter-approved pension reform that was later undone by public worker unions through the courts.” That was Proposition B in 2012, passed by 66% of voters.
Reason’s summary of the situation a year ago, citing the Nov. 2024 Fiscal Year 2026-2030 Five-Year Financial Outlook:
After years of steady financial recovery, the city expects a $170 million deficit in 2025, with deficits for years to come. The city’s Department of Finance estimates from 2026 to 2030 that city budget deficits could total $1.03 billion. This dire situation has compelled San Diego to implement hiring freezes and significant departmental cuts, including to public safety budgets, which are typically protected.
Those hiring freezes are exactly how budget problems become staffing shortages. Vacant positions remain vacant, retirements go unreplaced, academy classes shrink and response times inevitably lengthen.
Since then, a more accurate accounting came from the city’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year 2024-25, which ended on June 30, 2025. Instead of an estimate, it’s an actual tally. The key number is the Unrestricted Net Position, or financial resources for discretionary use. It was a negative $2.1 billion, or a negative $1,500 per person. That was 10.1% worse than the $1.9 billion UNP reported in 2024.
The ACFR explains, “This deficit largely reflects the combined Pension Liabilities of” $3.2 billion, “combined with” Other Post-Employment Benefits (mainly retiree medical) of $409 million. Total deficit from pension and OPEB liabilities: $3.6 billion.
Here is a chart comparing the UNPs for the five cities I’ve covered, with ACFR links:
| City | 2025 month released | UNP $ | UNP $ per capita |
| San Diego | June | -2.1 billion | -1,500 |
| Long Beach | Sept. | -979 million | -2,171 |
| Oakland | June | -940 million | -2,117 |
| Sacramento | June | -446 million | -848 |
| Los Angeles | June | -32 billion | -8,421 |
As you can see, Los Angeles is headed to disaster just in time for the LA 28 Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, the California Legislature is poised to approve Assembly Bill 1383, which would gut former Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2011 Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act (PEPRA), which reduced pension formulas for new hires. It’s also moving forward with Assembly Bill 1054. That would create a Deferred Retirement Option Plan (DROP), which allows “retired” public employees to keep working and then finally retire with a large lump-sum payment. Those laws are ostensibly designed to address the police-staffing problem, but they actually will make it worse by imposing increasing costs on localities that already are facing budget problems.
Conclusion: Tougher times ahead
The whole state needs reform for police and other pensions, on the model of San Diego’s Proposition B, only crafted to withstand court challenges. Without reform, the debate will no longer be about whether cities want more officers, but whether they can afford them. Budget deterioration and staffing shortages are not separate problems. They are the same problem. That’s the real irony.
John Seiler is on the Editorial Board of the Southern California News Group.