Regular readers will remember I have written a time or three about the Broadmoor Police Dept., or, more correctly, the Broadmoor Police Protection District, near San Francisco.

It is located in northern San Mateo County about a mile from the San Francisco border.  Right after WW II the residents of the Broadmoor community set up the Broadmoor Property Owners Association.  The idea was to prevent the residents from being involuntarily annexed by local towns.  One of the services provided for residents is the Broadmoor Police Services District.  It is the last remaining police services district within California.  It is a small department.  The total staff is only 7 actual police officers.  Their yearly budget is about $2.7 million.  (I have often though a lot of small police departments in CA exist solely for traffic control and to sign gun permits.  I could be wrong in that assessment.)  There are only 5,000 residents in the district which covers in total less than 1/2 square mile.

The current Acting Chief of Police is Michael Connolly.  He was previously the Chief but resigned in 2021 amid a scandal over his hiring processes.

Two prior chiefs and two prior commanders are said to have collected more than $2.5 million in illegal pensions from CalPERS.  In addition CalPERS is asserting that some of the peace officers working for the district have NOT been paying into CalPERS.  The two chiefs in question, David Parenti and Greg Love, both retired on disability pensions (which are tax-free) but continued to work full-time for the department.  CalPERS is now demanding that Parenti pay back $1.8 million.  Love has been charged criminally by the San Mateo County D.A.  He has "voluntarily" paid back $700,000 for retirement benefits he probably should not have received.  

Matthew Jacobs, the CalPERS general counsel, has called this "...the most egregious case of double-dipping we've seen."  He has also stated, "Its deliberate evasion of the retirement laws to enrich a few already well-paid individuals is completely unacceptable."   

CalPERS does not only want its bread back.  It is also seeking about $250,000 from Broadmoor as it is their opinion that Broadmoor never made correct payments into the system in the first place.   That, plus payments for 15 current and past police officers who were never enrolled in CalPERS in violation of law could bankrupt the district.  Those employees are also on the hook for their share of the payments into the system.  It is a complicated process because many of the records have disappeared.  

The district currently pays about $500,000 into CalPERS.  That could end up being only slightly more than half of what the district actually owes.  The various legal actions have cost the district over $600,000 in lawyers fees in the last 18 months.  

The San Mateo Local Agency Formation Committee has reported that the district will be about $450,000 in the hole by July 1 of this year and has run a deficit in five of the last six years.  Each of the residences in Broadmoor pays $490 per year for the district.  Each business pays $980.  The district also receives a 1% tax assessment from property owners within the district.   

The current chief has reduced the peace officer staff from eight to seven and cut one of the remaining positions to part-time.  The Chief is considering the idea of blending the department into the Daly City P.D. or the San Mateo County S.O.  The agency received about 750 calls for services per year.  This works out to about four times the cost per call of that associated with Daly City P.D.  It has about 100 officers and a service population of about 100,000.  Broadmoor has a very low crime rate compared to the other local jurisdictions.