Local police will log the perceived race of every person detained.

Race has been at the core of a nationwide law enforcement debate for the last couple of years.

Whether it involves the shooting death of an unarmed black teen in Ferguson, Missouri, or four Latinos killed by police in Salinas in one year, minorities have been a focus in the outcry.

Earlier this month, California legislators decided to do something about it.

A bill intended to reduce racial profiling by police, authored by Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, won the signature of Gov. Jerry Brown on Oct. 3. The legislation was in response to “the deaths of unarmed black men and other people of color by police,” Weber said in a press release.

The goal is to “re-establish trust between law enforcement and communities of color,” she adds.

Now, state law will require law enforcement agencies to record the perceived race and identity characteristics of any person stopped or detained by police. The law won’t go into effect for several years, to allow time for a system setup.

In Monterey County, the larger law enforcement agencies will have to implement the mandatory change by 2019, and smaller departments will begin in 2023.

But some local law enforcement leaders fear the added workload will strain their departments financially.

“This will be adding so much work,” says Salinas Police Chief Kelly McMillin. “No one is afraid of what we are doing out here, but it is going to cause too much work for us and that could prevent us from doing our jobs.”

McMillin anticipates officers will have to balance the additional work against the decision to contact a suspicious person, as his department continues to meet minimum staffing requirements.

“When a 10-minute contact results in 20 minutes of paperwork, it may cause an officer to simply ignore that contact and ignore that person, and go on about his or her business,” McMillin says.

He also believes the state should pay to help facilitate the change. “If they are going to make us do it, they should provide us with funding,” he says.

Monterey Police Chief Dave Hober has already met with county officials to see if to the county’s emergency communications department could help with data collection, Lt. Jeff Jackson says. If the county system can be used, it could facilitate data management for law enforcement agencies throughout the county.

The data collected every year will put use-of-force incidents involving police under a microscope.

Jackson agrees this will make police departments more transparent, but says his department is already willing to disclose that information.

In Salinas, McMillin says officers are already hesitant to act with force because they fear they could be the subject of “the next YouTube video or an unfounded, anger-fueled protest.”

Regardless of law enforcement leaders’ opinions on the new mandate, they will soon be forced to implement it. And the Attorney General will be required to provide the Legislature an annual report on the incidents, which will be publicly available on the California Department of Justice’s website.