Hollister lays off police civilians and a captain, union warns 33,000 evidence items, services at risk

The City of Hollister implemented layoffs that removed civilian staff and at least one captain from the Hollister Police Department, city officials and local reporting say. Local union leaders described emotional farewells as civilian records personnel left the station and patrol officers waited outside in their cars while colleagues said goodbye.

The Hollister Police Officers Association warned the cuts will hollow out functions that civilian employees handled, naming records, evidence processing, vehicle maintenance and patrol support as roles now vacant.

The association also said there are about 33,000 pieces of evidence that still need to be transferred from an old reporting system into a new one and warned that without staff to manage that work reports and arrest paperwork could be delayed and cases left unprepared for prosecutors and courts.

Records department employees Jenelle Hoefling and Jennifer Corona were identified in local reporting as among those laid off; Corona described the atmosphere as like "a funeral" in an interview cited by multiple outlets.

Reporting also places the layoffs in the context of a larger municipal budget shortfall: one outlet says the city faces a fiscal-year deficit of almost $7 million for 2025-2026 and that the layoffs affected multiple departments. The San Benito County Sheriff-Coroner-Marshall Eric S.

Taylor voiced concern about the loss of civilian police staff in a statement reported by local media. The police association said the city’s decision to cut civilian positions was signalled in a social media post the night before and that staff had been told City Manager Ana Cortez planned to lay off every civilian staff member in the department the following morning.

City leaders, according to one report, said they plan to fill seven positions; the reports do not specify which roles or the timeline for refilling them.

Sources differ in emphasis: local broadcast reporting focused on the personal impact and named laid-off employees and on-scene reactions, while other reporting framed the moves as part of a broader citywide budget reduction and quoted county law enforcement expressing concern.

What is confirmed in the available reporting is the layoffs themselves, the union’s warning about the 33,000 pieces of evidence awaiting transfer, the potential for slower report processing and court-ready case preparation, and public concern from county law enforcement; details such as which specific positions will be rehired, the schedule for evidence transfer, and independent verification of the 33,000-item figure beyond the police association’s statement are not provided in the cited articles.