H.B. residents pay pennies per police officer

Huntington Beach police officers are among the best-compensated in the county, though on a per capita basis, the cost per officer is one of the lowest in the county. There has been a lot of also out the cost of public safety lately, which consumes the lion s share of just about every city s budget, and is a spot some cities are eyeing for savings. So it was with great interest that we perused a list ranking O.C. s police departments - in order of total compensation. Which city s officers do you think are compensated most handsomely? If you guessed the biggest cities - Anaheim or Santa Ana - you d be wrong. Clocking in at No. 1 on the list is Costa Mesa, where top base monthly salary was $8,329 a month. Add in things like benefits and special pay, and total compensation was $13,998 per month. No. 2 was the county s largest law enforcement organization - the Orange County Sheriffs Department, which provides service to a dozen cities as well as the unincorporated athly salary for sheriffs deputies was $7,308, with total comp of $13,968. Rounding out the top three was Huntington Beach, where top base monthly salary was $7,274, with total comp of $13,966. It s a bit surprising to see little Seal Beach, Placentia and Cypress (coming in at Nos. 7, 8 and 9, respectively) spending more on total comp than much larger cities like Garden Grove, Orange, Santa Ana and Fullerton (Nos. 10,11,12 and 13). These numbers are drawn from a survey done by the Association of California Cities - Orange County, a sort of conservative break-away group from the League of California Cities, which lobbies on behalf of the burgs in Sacramento. They re a matter of much discussion in Placentia - where negotiations over a new police contract have hit a brick wall and a mediator is being called in. The sticking point: Whether officers will pay part of their 9 percent employee share of the pension contribution. PER CAPITA we know that the burden rests more lightly on y than on the shoulders of the few. And the smaller the police department, generally, the more it costs each Joe Citizen to pay the bill. Here are the cities where Joe Citizen carries the heaviest burden: For every person in little Los Alamitos, it costs more than $1 a month to pay this officer. In La Palma, it s 70 cents. Seal Beach is 54 cents; Laguna Beach, 50 cents; Placentia and Cypress, 25 cents. Now, compare that with the bigger departments, which can spread the costs over more people. These are the cities with the lightest burden: It costs Huntington Beach residents 7 cents each to pay the police officer. Irvine residents pay 6 cents. Anaheim residents pay 4 cents. And the lowest per-capita costs goes to the cities and areas served by the secondmost-handsomely-paid department: The Orange County Sheriffs Department. Folks in the dozen contract cities, and the county s unincorporated areas, pay just 2