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HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-134APRIL 14, 2004 09 -134 RESOLUTION (CARRIED 6 -0 LOST LAID OVER WITHDRAWN ) PURPOSE: AUTHORIZE APPLICATION AND ACCEPTANCE OF COPS HIRING RECOVERY PROGRAM (CHRP) GRANT TO HIRE TWO POLICE OFFICERS INITIATED BY: OSHKOSH POLICE DEPARTMENT BE IT RESOLVED by the Common Council for the City of Oshkosh that the proper City officials are hereby authorized and directed to make application for a grant with U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for: Funding for wages and benefits for 3 years (36 months), for two entry level sworn police officers through the COPS Hiring Recovery Program with the requirement that the City retain the two employees for an additional one year. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the proper City officials are hereby authorized and directed to execute any and all documents required by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services for purpose of the same, and are further authorized and directed, if said grant is awarded, to accept such funds, pursuant to the terms of the grant application. 420 Jackson Street P.O. Box 1130 Oshkosh, WI 54903 -1130 Tel: 920/236 -5700 Fax: 920/236 -5087 www.oshkoshpd.com 0 QIHKQIH ON THE WATER TO: FROM: DATE: RE: City of Oshkosh Police Department MEMORANDUM Honorable Mayor and Members of the Common Council Scott D. Greuel, Chief of Police April 2, 2009 COPS Hiring Recovery Program Application Approval BACKGROUND The Oshkosh Police Department is seeking approval to hire two entry level sworn police officers through the COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP) grant. These officers will be assigned to our most active Team Policing areas to strengthen our proactive problem solving in those areas. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) recently announced the availability of funding under the COPS Hiring Recovery Program (CHRP). The COPS office will receive the funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to address the sworn officer personnel needs of local law enforcement. Applications are only being accepted during a four -week timeframe and are due by April 14, 2009. CHRP is a competitive grant program that provides funding directly to law enforcement agencies having primary law enforcement authority to create and preserve jobs, and to increase the community policing capacity and crime prevention efforts. There is no local match requirement for CHRP, and grant funding will be based on current entry level salary and benefits. CHRP grants will provide 100% funding for wages and benefits for 3 years (36 months) for newly- hired, full -time sworn officer positions. There is no cap on the number of positions an agency may request, but awards are limited to available funding. Grantees must retain all sworn officer positions awarded under the CHRP grant for a period of one year (12 months) following the conclusion of grant funding. The retained CHRP funded positions should be added to the grantee's law enforcement budget with state or local funds, over and above the number of locally funded positions that would have existed in the absence of the grant. The addition of two sworn police officers would increase our authorized sworn strength to 101 officers, and would return us to our sworn staffing level that existed in 2001 (see attached graph). The last time we were able to significantly increase the number of our authorized sworn personnel from 90 to 98 officers was during the COPS Grant allocations made in the mid to late 1990's. Adding two additional sworn officers would help us to assign one additional officer to Teams 1 and 2, and increase our ability to problem -solve in those areas. ANALYSIS This analysis will help to show the need for, and our use of two additional officers that will assist us in our Team Policing efforts. Calls for service in 2008 increased by 1,574 incidents over 2007, and was our highest year for calls for service on record. We handled 41,494 incidents in 2008 which amounts to about 114 incidents per day. It was anticipated that our incidents would increase because of our proactive self initiated Team Policing efforts. Our goal is to gradually reduce our calls for service and increase officer uncommitted time that will enable officers to engage in more proactive problem solving and crime prevention efforts. Team officers are identifying quality of life issues in neighborhoods, that were previously unreported thereby increasing the problem solving workload and follow up actions needed by our officers in many areas of the city. We are trying to allocate our team resources to focus on the top ten problem areas of the city that require police intervention to proactively reduce calls for service, crimes and problems. We regularly receive positive feedback from citizens that feel our Team Policing strategies are helping to improve the quality of life in their neighborhoods. However, we also get feedback that our citizens are receiving delays in response to calls or follow up investigations at times. By adding value to our services, we are increasing stakeholder demand for our services. We are not yet at the level we feel that is expected of us or that we expect of ourselves, and additional Team Officers will assist in the achievement of service delivery goals. We are working on improving internal processes and expectations as well, not just requesting more officers to achieve our Team Policing goals. Our goal is to help to create stronger, safer neighborhoods. We can increase our likelihood of achieving our goals and meeting community expectations by having the necessary staffing to balance our responsiveness to incidents with our ability to engage in proactive problem solving. Traffic enforcement, especially residential speeding, continues to be a high frequency demand from citizens in locations throughout the city. Adding additional officers to our teams will enable us to complete more traffic enforcement details throughout the city, and help us to focus more attention on pedestrian safety in our downtown area as well as enforcement at our high traffic crash locations. Additionally, the various DOT highway reconstruction projects scheduled to occur in the next couple of years will require us to allocate officers to manage and direct traffic safely and expeditiously through our community along the detour routes. Inevitably, the detours will create traffic congestion along the routes and adjacent roadways. A good traffic management plan will likely be manpower intensive and will drain our resources and hinder our other proactive Team Policing efforts. There may be changes to our concurrent jurisdiction agreement that may require Oshkosh Police officers to handle crashes on HWY 21 west of HWY 41 previously handled by the Sheriff's Department. Data from the past five years indicates an average of 115 crashes /incidents per year on that roadway that our officers would have to investigate. That amounts to significant manpower hours needed to manage the scenes, especially if many of those crashes are designated as intermediate level or injury crashes. . We have experienced a significant increase in the number of arrests of intoxicated motorists during the past year through our proactive Team Policing. There were 344 "Operating Motor Vehicle While Intoxicated" arrests in 2008, as compared to 312 in 2007 for a 9% increase. To date in 2009, we have arrested 125 intoxicated drivers and are on pace for over 500 arrests in 2009, which is a 31 % increase over 2008. Each arrest takes at least one officer off the street for 1.5 to 2 hours to process the arrest. Aggressive OWI enforcement helps to reduce the number of alcohol related motor vehicle crashes and injuries. We have improved our methods and organizational philosophy in dealing with persons with mental illnesses in a crisis situation. Our officers are receiving Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training that teaches officers how to calm a mental health crisis situation and explore all the options available for resolution. In fact, Officer Joe Framke was named CIT Officer of the Year in 2008 by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) — Fox Valley Chapter. In 2008, our officers handled 435 incidents resulting in emergency detentions at mental health facilities as a result of suicide attempts or overt threats to harm self or others. To date in 2009, we have conducted 107 Emergency Committal placements. These types of incidents are very time consuming and take the officer off the street for long periods of time. CIT trained officers may actually need to increase the time they spend on a mental health crisis incident, but that effort may more effectively deal with the needs of the individual based on a developed crisis plan, and may also result in reduced costs by diverting the individual from a hospital or jail placement. The Oshkosh Police Department does not have a Canine Unit. Currently, we have to request mutual aid assistance from the Sheriff's Department when requested to conduct locker searches in city schools, or for other incidents requiring Canine assistance. I would like to re- develop at least one Canine Unit, and the additional grant officers would help us to absorb the demands of a canine unit on our resources. A Canine Unit would help to enhance our drug interdiction effectiveness on vehicle stops, as it is unreasonable and unlawful to delay the vehicle stop process in order to wait for a Sheriff's Dept. Canine Unit to respond for assistance. The abuse of controlled substances has been a significant contributing factor in persons engaged in serious crimes in our community. The implementation of a Canine Unit would enhance one piece of our overall drug enforcement and intervention strategy. A canine unit could be started with our current sworn staffing level, but the duties of a canine handler and the manpower hours expended in that capacity on any given day does stress an already burdened workforce. Any one of the examples described indicates how we could enhance our services to the community with the addition of two police officers hired on the CHRP Grant. FISCAL IMPACT According to current wages and benefits, the fiscal impact to sustain the two grant positions the fourth year is approximately $152,888 to $166,156 depending on whether the employees have a single or family insurance plan. That amount does not include any contractual wage increases during the term of the grant. We would be expected to fund the officers at the wage and benefits level they would normally be at in the fourth year of service according to their bargaining contract at that time when the grant period expires. We will have three years to prepare and develop strategies for funding the officers the fourth year, and subsequent years if possible. SUMMARY Based on the factors indicated above and our continuing efforts to address community safety needs through our Team Policing efforts, I am requesting approval to complete the CHRP Grant application process necessary to add two police officers to the Oshkosh Police Department. Respectfully submitted, 5 t' -- tt )f AALu Scott D. Greuel Chief of Police Approved, r ry Mark Rohloff City Manager