Citrus Heights school police coverage changes before Aug. 13

Citrus Heights will enter the 2026-27 school year with a different police structure around its schools. On July 8, 2026, the City Council approved a restructuring that dissolved the Citrus Heights Police Department’s dedicated Traffic Unit and moved its four employees into patrol.

The department says patrol officers will continue monitoring school areas and enforcing traffic and e-bike rules. The main change for schools is organizational: CHPD will no longer assign a specific officer liaison to each school.

What changes around Citrus Heights schools

School-zone traffic and e-bike enforcement will now be handled through patrol operations rather than a standalone Traffic Unit. The city has not provided evidence showing that the restructuring has increased or reduced enforcement frequency, response times, citations, collisions or school-safety incidents.

Families, students, school employees, drivers and e-bike riders should distinguish between continued enforcement and a changed point of contact. Patrol officers are expected to continue monitoring school areas and responding to traffic-safety concerns, including e-bike enforcement, but schools will no longer have the same individually assigned police-liaison arrangement.

Citrus Heights will continue its police liaison relationship with San Juan Unified School District’s Safe Schools team. Investigative Services Lieutenant Shaun Gualco will remain CHPD’s liaison to that district-level team, according to city information reported by the Citrus Heights Sentinel.

Why the council approved the restructuring

The July 8 action was tied to labor agreements, employee compensation changes and the city’s effort to manage rising labor-related costs. The council unanimously ratified agreements with represented employees and approved compensation changes affecting unrepresented employees, while moving the four Traffic Unit employees into patrol.

The restructuring was reported as producing an estimated $975,000 in savings during fiscal year 2026-27 and roughly $1.24 million the following year. Those savings were described as largely offsetting an estimated $1.11 million cost associated with the labor-agreement compensation packages.

That financial rationale is not a finding that school safety was reduced. It describes a city-approved reorganization of police staffing. The council’s action and the department’s plans for day-to-day patrol assignments are related but separate questions.

How this differs from the 2024 school-liaison plan

In 2024, the council reviewed school-safety options that included using the existing Traffic Unit to create a school-liaison program. The staff report described enhanced traffic enforcement, life-safety support, perimeter security and communication with schools, with a particular focus on Citrus Heights high schools and possible expansion to other campuses as staffing allowed.

The 2024 document was a proposal and direction-setting record, not a finding that every school had a permanently assigned officer. The 2026 restructuring changes the organizational basis for that plan by dissolving the Traffic Unit. It ends the assignment of a specific CHPD officer liaison to each school while preserving patrol-based enforcement and district-level coordination through Safe Schools.

What students and drivers should expect this fall

Cambridge Heights Elementary’s official calendar lists Thursday, August 13, 2026, as the first day of school. The new police structure will therefore be in place as students return at that Citrus Heights campus.

Drivers should still expect patrol-based attention to school-zone traffic and e-bike rules. Students, parents and school staff who need safety coordination may work through school and district channels, including the San Juan Unified Safe Schools relationship maintained by Lieutenant Gualco, rather than a dedicated CHPD officer assigned to their individual campus.

The department has also said it will retain access to an on-call traffic investigator and plans to establish a Major Accident Investigations Team. Those are operational plans related to the restructuring, but they do not establish how often officers will be present at any particular school or whether school-zone outcomes will change.

For now, the verified change is structural: four Traffic Unit employees moved to patrol, individually assigned school liaisons ended, and patrol-based traffic and e-bike enforcement is expected to continue. Future data will be needed to determine whether the new model affects enforcement frequency, response times, collisions or other school-zone outcomes.

Sources

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