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Berkeley Police Sergeant Eric Gustafson isn’t worried yet. 

But he sure is busy. 

Gustafson is the man charged with pulling in enough new recruits to replace the officers the Berkeley Police Department expects to lose to retirement this year and next year. 

The department is already understaffed, with just 195 of the 204 positions filled that were in the 2000-2001 budget.  

And the department’s annual retirement rate has been on the rise for the last couple of years, as many of the officers who joined the force during the late ’60s and early ’70s – busy years for a department charged with keeping the peace in a city whose very name was synonymous with civil unrest – are now reaching retirement age. 

According to the estimates Gustafson was able to pull together Thursday, nine officers retired last year, compared to just five in 1999.  

This rate could accelerate still more if the Berkeley Police Association succeeds in its negotiations for a new retirement policy this summer. Under the new policy, a number of senior officers would become eligible to receive the maximum retirement pay: 85 percent of their current salary. This could leave them little incentive to stay on the force, Gustafson said – particularly for those who’ve already put in 30 years.  

With the policy in place, Gustafson estimates that the department could lose 15 officers to retirement by then end of this year, and similar numbers the following year. 

To try to keep up with this rate of attrition, the Berkeley Police Department has given its recruitment efforts a boost. A special Recruitment Committee has been meeting for the last six months, brainstorming new ways to get the word out to would-be candidates. 

For the first time, the department has begun advertising its job openings as far away as Sacramento and San Jose.  

It’s listed on trendy Web sites like Hotjobs.com, and translated its pitch into Spanish and Vietnamese for advertisements in prominent ethnic newspapers. 

For the first time this year the Police Department had a recruitment booth and the city’s Cinco de Mayo festival at Civic Center Park. 

Other plans in the offing include giving officers more paid released time so they can visit colleges with good criminal justice programs and sing the virtues of the Berkeley Police Department.  

But in the face of fierce competition for a limited pool of officer candidates in the Bay Area, and around the nation, all these efforts have barely managed to maintain recruitment numbers, let along increase them, Gustafson said. 

“Everybody else is in the same boat we are, and we’re all fishing in the same pond,” Gustafson said. 

He still holds out hope, however, for the department’s efforts to recruit people who haven’t necessarily been on the track to becoming police officers. Ads in the San Jose Mercury News, the paper of record for Silicon Valley, look promising, Gustafson said.. 

“It’s a calculated roll of the dice,” he said. With the recent battering of the technology sector “there are a lot of people out of a job,” Gustafson said.  

“So let’s throw our net over there.” 

Berkeley Police Department has long gone out of its way to recruit people from fields that may not seem to be directly related to police work. 

“Some of our best officers come from backgrounds in English, sociology or psychology,” Gustafson said. “They’re often better prepared in a lot of ways” for police work, he added. 

The Berkeley Police Department has a fair share of officers who were once teachers, Gustafson said, explaining the skills needed for the two professions overlap in more ways than many might think. Both teachers and police need to be able to communicate well, give instruction, and maintain order, Gustafson said. 

Furthermore, Gustafson said, whereas a starting teacher in the Bay Area might make between $35,000 and $45,000 a year, the starting salary for a Berkeley police officer is $57,000. 

Still, Gustafson said it’s difficult for the department to come up with a strategy for recruiting high numbers of new officers overnight, particularly given the sheer complexity of the process for becoming a new police officer – a process that can take anywhere from three months to a year to complete. 

The written test – which includes sections on writing, logic and some basic math – isn’t so hard. More than 90 percent of candidates pass this test. And the physical test – running the obstacle course - is nothing that the average person can’t handle, Gustafson said. 

It’s the thorough background check where many would-be candidates are eliminated, Gustafson said, for things such as recent drug use, or a pattern of questionable behavior. 

“We aren’t looking for perfect people,” Gustafson said. “We’re looking for people who, if they’ve made mistakes in their lives, they’ve learned from them.” 

Of the 60 to 90 people who take the Berkeley Police Department’s written test, which is offered three or four times a year, somewhere between five and 10 might be approved for hire, Gustafson said. Of these, another 15 to 20 percent might be lost in the course of trying to complete the required 23 week police academy program. 

Gustafson said the Berkeley Police Department is doing everything it can to make the process smooth and swift for desirable candidates, however. 

“We’re moving on applicants before the dust has settled on the testing process,” he said. 

Finally, asked whether the loss of Berkeley’s most veteran police officers could have a negative impact on the force, Gustafson was ambivalent. 

“We’ve been so fortunate with the level of ability, education and maturity of our young people,” he said. “But you can’t replace a person with 30 years experience with someone with no experience and expect the department to be in the same position.” 

For more information about how to become a Berkeley police officer call 981-5977 and to apply, call the city Personnel Department at 981-6888.