The owner of the Maine Mall ended its contract to pay for a full-time police officer at the South Portland shopping center a month before an alleged carjacking occurred in the Macy’s parking lot.

General Growth Properties refused in January to renew the salary and benefits for a full-time South Portland patrol officer at the state’s largest mall.

The contract with the city had been in place since 1996. General Growth, the nation’s second-largest mall owner, faces mounting financial problems and warns it may have to file for bankruptcy.

Jim Graham, spokesman for the Chicago-based company, said Monday it is standard practice for the mall owner to provide its own private security but not to fund municipal police officers.

“We routinely review all aspects of mall operations, including all contractual agreements,” Graham said. “We no longer saw a need for our mall to fund the agreement we had with the city police department.”

The agreement predated General Growth’s ownership of the mall. General Growth bought the Maine Mall in 2003 and had continued funding the position for five years.

The company opted not to renew the contract in January.

Police Chief Ed Googins said that the mall-based patrol officer would not have been on duty on the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 17, when a 25-year-old woman leaving the mall was allegedly forced into her Toyota at gunpoint by a male suspect and ordered to drive.

The mall-based officer generally worked an afternoon shift that started at 1 or 2 p.m. and ended when the mall closed at night.

The suspect allegedly ordered the woman to exit her car and leave the keys, after she refused to drive from the parking lot. He then drove off in her vehicle, which later was found in a motel parking lot.

Richard Campbell, arrested in connection with several unrelated robberies, is being eyed as a suspect in the mall incident, after police arrested and cleared a different suspect.

“Campbell is not ‘the’ suspect but ‘a’ suspect at this point,” said Detective Sgt. Steve Webster. He declined to say whether police found fingerprints from the recovered vehicle or have surveillance videotape from the mall parking lot linking the suspect to the carjacking.

Video cameras are in various locations around the mall, but it is unclear whether any cameras captured the incident.

Webster said evidence of that type will be disclosed, when a suspect is charged in connection with the carjacking.

Webster said the mall-based police officer had responded mostly to reports of shoplifting, which occur daily at the shopping center. The officer also provided a presence at the busy shopping center.

From January to November 2008, there were more than 425 reports of shoplifting at the mall, an increase from 2007. Police do not expect that trend to change in the difficult economy.

Since the contract for the mall-based officer expired, a patrol car covering the west end of South Portland usually responds to complaints.

South Portland has four cars on patrol at all hours, with the city divided into sectors. If an officer is too busy to respond to a complaint in his or her coverage area, a car from another part of South Portland may respond.

Googins said the loss of the full-time position makes us “less effective” at the shopping mall and the neighborhood around it.

“We are doing our best to cover calls for service,” Googins said. “Obviously the calls are quite high out there. Now a squad car has to respond any time there is a call to handle a shoplifting or anything else that comes up.”

Officer Bob Libby had been assigned to the Maine Mall. Libby was moved to an open position on the police force when the mall job was eliminated, Googins said.

The city does not have immediate plans to provide additional funding to continue the mall officer’s job.

The contract with General Growth had called for the company to pay for the salary and benefits of an officer with 13 years experience, which dates back to when the position was created and first funded in 1996.

Googins did not have figures on how much the city most recently received to pay the salary and benefits for the position.

Googins said that in 1996 the salary was for a starting officer, but “step increases” were added over the years.

John McGough, the city’s director of human services, said an officer with 15 years’ experience earns $22.56 per hour. The starting salary for a new officer is $16.68 per hour.

Graham, the spokesman for General Growth, declined to disclose the amount of the contract.

The loss of a police officer at the mall comes at a difficult time for South Portland police.

The department is losing three officers who voluntarily resigned this month after the city offered buyouts to full-time workers to avoid layoffs in a tight budget year.

A patrol lieutenant, a patrol sergeant and a detective took the buyouts. Two of the three veteran officers have left the force, and the third ends his job this week.

Googins said the detective slot will not be filled, and supervisors will be promoted to fill the other two vacancies, which need to be staffed to run the Police Department.

Googins said the city may hire new officers, at a lower pay scale, to fill two open positions. But those hires would not come on board until February or March 2010.

The delay is to allow recruits to graduate from the state police academy, a requirement of all new officers.