The BART Board of Directors approved a three-year contract extension with the unions representing BART police Thursday, which union officials say will aid the hiring of non-officer positions like crisis intervention specialists and transit ambassadors.
The contract with the BART Police Officers’ Association and the BART Police Managers’ Association includes funding to hire 20 crisis intervention specialists, 10 transit ambassadors and 12 sworn officers to the BART Police Department’s staff.
The three-year extension will take effect after June 2022, when BART police’s current labor contracts are set to expire.
The crisis intervention specialists and transit ambassadors will be assigned to BART police’s new Progressive Policing and Community Engagement Bureau, intended to increase rider trust in BART police while reducing crime onboard trains.
BART police employees assigned to the bureau will also receive a 10 percent special assignment pay increase as part of the contract extension.
“This agreement is the result of good faith negotiations on all sides and is an essential step in the process of achieving my vision for safety at BART,” BART Police Chief Ed Alvarez said in a statement.
“The contract recognizes our current financial challenges while making it possible to fully staff and support our progressive policing initiatives,” he said.
Crisis intervention specialists hired by BART police will be required to have a background in social work and will offer outreach and support to riders dealing with crises, homelessness and issues of mental health and substance use.
The addition of crisis intervention experts and on-train ambassadors is the result of BART officials working to respond to rider concerns of misconduct and over-policing on BART trains and platforms.
The contract extension includes scaled pay raises that are tied to the transit system regaining its pre-pandemic ridership in the coming years.
Officers will not receive raises if ridership is not back to 60 percent of pre-pandemic levels in the second and third years of the contract.
They would, however, be eligible for raises of up to 2.5 percent by fiscal year 2025 if BART ridership returns to its full, pre-pandemic level.
“The contract recognizes our current financial challenges while making it possible to fully staff and support our progressive policing initiatives,” Alvarez said.
Qualified candidates to join the BART Police Department can apply at https://www.bart.gov/about/jobs.
Will this nuttinessl stop when a social worker/crisis intervention specialist gets shot or stabbed?
I have major issues with BART’s out of control labor costs. However, I do support additional funds for hiring and providing pay increases for the BART Police force employees.
The crisis intervention specialist and transit ambassador program is an excellent concept, and I fervently wish it to be successful. My wife stopped riding BART for her commute to South San Francisco (prior to the pandemic) because she no longer felt safe due to the preponderance of homeless and mentally ill people on the trains.
BART Police should be disbanded a contract signed with a local police agency to serve the system.
108RS
Agreed – the Contra Costa sheriff provides law enforcement services to AC Transit; why not have several agencies provide services bounded by county? Think outside the box!
Bart is spread across 5 counties, 27 cities. So which one of these police or sheriff departments do you think should be granted powers to operate outside their respective jurisdiction to cover the entire system?
The California Highway Patrol is the only police agency in the state that has jurisdiction for the entire state. So unless BART contracts the CHP to cover the system, BART will need to have it’s own independent police department.
Social workers & crisis intervention specialists already have a history of refusing to respond at the hint of danger. What a waist of resources.
And don’t forget the “transit ambassadors….”
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If the designers, management & citizens of the mid-60’s could see what an utter bureaucratic mess & money pit BRAT has turned into…they’d TU