April 30, 2008
Open letter to Council re: city budget / police funding
In the inbox from the OTMG: “Below is an abbreviated version of an email recently sent our councilman, who offered to then forward it to his fellow councilpersons, city manager, and mayor so they all know the kinds of questions we are asking. The questions along with the apparent answers might find the funds in the existing budget to take care of our immediate shortfalls in Police salaries, allow for new hires, and a greater likelihood of retention. This “letter” could also serve as a template for others wishing to communicate with their councilpersons, the mayor, the city manager BEFORE THE UPCOMING MAY 6 COUNCIL MEETING. Please EXPRESS YOUR CONCERNS!
Emails are: David Canada - City Manager - ctymgr@earthlink.net / Dama E. Rice - Councilwoman, Ward 1 - drice@petersburg-va.org / Carl (Mike) Ross - Councilman, Ward 2 - cross@petersburg-va.org (or try mross@petersburg-va.org) / Kenneth Pritchett - Councilman, Ward 3 - pattykenp@aol.com / Brian A. Moore - Councilman, Ward 4 - councilman.moore@verizon.net / Annie M. Mickens - Mayor / Councilwoman, Ward 5 - ammickens@hotmail.com / David Ray Coleman - Councilman, Ward 6 - rcoleman@petersburg-va.org (or try dcoleman@petersburg-va.org) / Horace P. Webb - Councilman, Ward 7 - hwebb@petersburg-va.org. You may also write all above at City Hall, Rm 210, 135 N Union St., Petersburg VA 23803. Or you can call and leave a message on the City’s message system by calling 733-2323, press #3 to leave a message, then press the Ward # for the mailbox of the specific Councilperson.
Thanks for your support on this critical issue, and please plan to attend the May 6 Council meeting! Your presence is needed!
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LETTER TO CITY COUNCIL:
This city has a crisis of manning in the Police Department. It has been growing for several years, and was most likely also influenced by this city’s failure to hire a Police Chief for so long. For whatever reason, now we have a chance to be proactive and help this city, and the Police Department. This matter will be addressed in the Public Comment time slot at the next City Council meeting on May 6. I and other concerned citizens requested information from the Police Dept and were stunned by the facts. I am hoping that the city council members are simply not aware of how big an issue this is. For the life of me I can’t see any city council not believing the manning of the police department and the impact that has on public safety should be one of their primary priorities.
Please tell me how you plan to help Chief Dixon fully man the Police Department to the numbers of officers he is already authorized. Just giving him more slots for officers that he cannot recruit now, when 27 positions are already vacant, is not the right answer.
The bottom line is this city is 27 police officers below what it is authorized to have. This city has the lowest starting salaries for Police officers in the region. Combine a high crime rate, lack of adequate manning (resulting in 12 hours shifts and one man patrols), and the lowest pay in the region and you’ll see why the turn-over rate for officers is so high, and understand why the Police Department cannot recruit adequately. The City Council has finally hired an experienced and proactive Police Chief. He has come to Petersburg with new energy, and a Strategic Plan to tackle the problems we have. He needs to fill all the slots the department is already authorized. The only way he will be able to do this is by stopping the attrition of officers, recruiting quality officers and requiring their pay be made commensurate with the surrounding communities. He has created this plan, and yet lacks the funding to do it.
I know this will generate a response of “so where is the money going to come from?” Because of that, I’ve examined the FY08 budget and the proposed FY09 budget, which generated the following questions. I would really ask for your help in explaining these so I can understand them.
1. Is there a written or unwritten city policy (or HR policy) that limits the pay scale of city works to below the surrounding communities?. I have heard this stated as fact.
2. In the FY08 budget that was adopted, it was stated that the revenue factor used for real property taxes was $1.33 per $100, based on a decrease in the tax rate. This decrease did not happen. The city real property tax stayed at $1.35 per $100. Where is this excess revenue that was generated in 2008, and not funded to any department? I’d like an accounting of it please.
3. How many properties does the city own of all types, but specifically how many types of property has the city taken possession of that are not income generating, or paying real property taxes? I have heard it is over 400, and some say 700. I’d like to know the number (within a dozen).
4. What is the estimated value of all this property that is not generating income?
5. What is the city’s plan to sell the property and get it off the books, thus making it taxable property and generating income for the city?
6. In the draft FY09 budget that the City Manager has submitted to Council, there is a statement in it “The City’s current undesignated General Fund balance is 18.66% of the proposed FY09 operating budget.” How much is this, and why is this city leaving tens of millions of dollars in general funding with no accountability or public oversight? Is this a City Policy?
7. Who authorizes the expenditure of these “undesignated” funds?
8. Where is the accountability of the FY07 and FY08 “undesignated” funds that are/were in this category?
I realize helping Chief Dixon (and in reality all the citizens of Petersburg) will cost money, but public safety should not take a back seat to any other funding issue. This year the city raised property assessments 10%, and did not lower the tax rate. That’s a good place to start with. Liquidating the non-income generating properties the city holds is another. I also am very anxious to understand what the “undesignated General Fund” is for, how the money is allocated within it, and the accountability procedures that are in place for it. I look forward to discussing other options with you.”
Thank you Councilman, for your time. I know you are in a difficult position during this budget cycle. I want to provide you input, so you know the priorities of your constituency. If we don’t give you our input, how can we expect you to represent us accordingly? We all share responsibility in this.
Where is this figure of 27 officers owed coming from? What staffing standard methodology was used to determine the number of total positions due and what is it based on - I’m guessing population.
Just curious if it’s something that is laid out in the Code of Virginia along with the allocation of Law Enforcement deputies for Counties where the Sheriff is responsible for law enforcement as well as court services/security and/or jail duties.
I know, on a whole, Law Enforcement is grossly understaffed/underfunded across the Commonwealth.
My understanding from talking with the Chief and others at the PD is that 27 is the number of actual vacant positions that are already authorized and funded. I also think that I understood that some of these positions are communications (dispatch) positions.
I asked if a manning study had been done recently and I inferred from the answer that there isn’t one. I think they are thinking that they’d be happy to fill the funded positions at all much less asking for an increase in slots. I doubt that whatever manpower study resulted in the current number of positions at the PD would be relevant now as it’s data would be greatly outdated. As an aside, you might here council/city officials complaining that pay was raised a few years ago for current officers and that is true, but what they did was get rid of a few positions and spread the pay around to the current troops. That does not help the recruitment/retention problem.
I think the critical number would be that which allows at the very least, getting the current troops off 12 hour shifts. A nicer larger number would allow creation of specialty units that would be useful in combating particular crime problems. I suspect there are only enough officer positions funded right now for the former.
Staffing levels are something that are usually determined by manpower studies that will factor in things like population, numbers of calls for service, average response times etc.
I don’t know that there is a mandated staffing level and suspect that it is left to each locality to decide. When a Sheriff’s office is involved I think there is a formula used to figure out minimum manning.
Being understaffed in any police department seems to be the norm. As an example, every area I’ve ever worked when I was still on the road for the state was undermanned and we never had all positions filled. The last area I worked was James City/York County and we were understaffed by about five there at the time (’92-’96) and the last I checked a year or so ago the manning has not changed at all despite a huge population/traffic increase.
I wonder if it’s worth asking about the $2,404,288 in 599 Funds that the City received from DCJS in FY08 and FY09. The funding source on the City’s budget looks like all of the budget for the PD are coming from the General Fund and Highway Safety Enforcement.
Unless maybe they dump the 599 Funds into their E&G funds *shrug*
The problem of understaffing the PD is an old issue that just gets worse with time. They currently seem to prioritize calls based on who-knows-what which equates to non response. Case in point. For the past month Mt. Vernon street, Monticello Street and the surronds have been been vandelized by three young boys (12-15yrs). Recently they were seen attempting to break into a home on Monticello which was witnessed and reported by three neighbors. (They do these things every afternoon between 3:00PM and 3:30PM and in the morning between 7AM and 7:20AM.) I spoke to the responding officers myself and accompanied them to where I thought they lived. When we didn’t locate them, I was asked to call the PPD Dispatch the next day so they could be intercepted at the school bus stop at Claremont and Tuckahoe at 3:15PM. I called the next afternoon but dispatch had no record of the call even though they had dispatcher two officers the day before and no incident report. Since I had the officers card, they had him call me but it was too late that afternoon to make the bus. I have called repeatedly since and have never been able to get anyone back out here. I have taken photographs of the kids, learned their correct places of residence and even their school bus number. I have given up. Officially it never happened.
Culture of Crime.
It has to change, or life won’t change for the people here.
In my neighborhood, you wouldn’t need to go to the cops. If you went to the parents, you’d never even see these kids for a month, as they’d be grounded, painting the house, moving the neighbor’s yard…
For sure Shawn, if these kids were actually from the McKesson Farm Neighborhood that would be true here also. Problem is they actually live in Ivy Gates Appartments. We have also learned that the may be involved in a rash of thefts of copper gutters from houses whereby the kids seek out and identify copper which is later stolen by older family member(s). How’s that for culture of crime?
We had a hit and run incident, and it took almost 3 months, lots of calls, 3 different officers (each ‘new’ to the case, w/ no prior info having been shared among them). Part of the issue was that the first responding officer was a training officer and his trainee quit… a second bunch came out, to no apparent effect. The training officer returned some time later, again, to no effect (one got the sense that our complaint was not the sort of thing he handles). And finally a third officer who gave the impression of being highly experienced got the issue straightened out in a jiffy. Overall, I got the sense that our little complaint was seriously low on the priority list, there being bigger fish to fry, and that the whole thing came down to lack of adequate staffing.
It appears, through this incident and others that I am aware of, that the PD has difficulty tracking any incidents that do not rise to the level of needing a police report.
When Brenda first started this page I warned her that getting crime data from the PD would probably be difficult as I suspected that even the PD themselves could not generate crime data for their own use.
From my interaction with the PD ref a hit and run on my personal vehicle it appears that small day to day data transactions are not happening and things fall through the cracks.
Being that the PD has been the recipient of E-911 tax funding, I’d be interested to see what type of CAD (computer aided dispatch) is in place that does not store and retrieve data that would tickle or assist investigations or track minor trends that could turn into major crimes.
At last year’s budget hearing (this prior to Dixon’s taking the helm), the gentleman in charge of data at the PD responded to Council’s question that the city’s crime data was available to the public at our leisure. That being the case, I immediately followed up with him to try to get a crime incident log (on a weekly basis or so) that contained only three fields: 1) date/time of incident, 2) ‘type’ of incident (as they classify things themselves), and 3) location. The first two fields were no problem. The third was more tricky. While Richmond and other VA jurisdictions have no problem sharing actual incident addresses, apparently Petersburg takes the view that addresses cannot be shared; instead, ‘the 200 block of XYZ street’ can be, or theoretically, a location’s latitude/longitude can be.
For the purposes of this site, lat/long would be fine, as code could be written to translate it into something googlemaps can use to present a map of local crime incidents, like this. However, their data management system used (uses?) geox/geoy - something that looks like it is a function of lat/long, but is not lat/long itself, and noone could ever get back to me re: how to unwind the coordinates (for those that aren’t quants, a simple formula applied to geox/geoy should be able to spit out a transformed lat/long in a snap). Long/short, a middle-school level problem was a stumbling block.
So that’s all last year, prior to Chief Dixon. Since his joining the force, I understand that he is underwhelmed with the office’s data management resources and my conversations with new personnel indicate that they are working toward funding/obtaining a system that is more robust/useful.
Again, this is a funding/staffing issue.
“For sure Shawn, if these kids were actually from the McKesson Farm Neighborhood that would be true here also. Problem is they actually live in Ivy Gates Appartments.”
See, the thing is I grew up in a middle-class/working class neighborhood, near a city with high unemployment.
The parents are teaching their children to be criminals. They need to be gently placed in JAIL and the children put into foster care, post haste.
Don’t let the focus drop on the fact that one of the opportunities to address these issues will be at the May 6 City Council meeting at the train station on River St., starting 7:30. A presentation will be given during the public comment section and we need supporting bodies there in #s to show that we are serious about funding to allow for police hires, raises, retention, equipment, etc. etc. There is also a petition out there in support of same, call 733 4495 if you do not know where a petition is located and want to sign.
“My understanding from talking with the Chief and others at the PD is that 27 is the number of actual vacant positions that are already authorized and funded.”
WOW if they actually are funded and available, I’m not sure why they WOULDN’T let him fill the positions. UNLESS they are using the vacancy/salary savings somewhere else?
If they were simply positions “due” and unfunded that would be less concerning since there are MANY localities in that particular boat. (I know I won’t win any gold stars for that one..eh)
The Mayor on drug dealing in Petersburg: here.
Article in TD:
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-05-04-0135.html
This is a positive development. You are behind. It doesn’t matter WHY. — you need to work over-time to catch up.
Chuck,
No one is keeping the positions from being filled. The problem is that no one wants to do the job for the pay being offered and that attrition is eating up any new hires they do get so you are always playing catch up.
The inflow needs to outstrip the outflow and that’s just not going to happen till the positions are made viable with proper pay.
Yes everyone needs to turn out on Tuesday night. Bring yourself and a friend and a friends friend. When whomever stands up to deliver the information to council we need to all be standing behind the speaker. I hope we can pack the building AND the parking lot.
“Just giving him more slots for officers that he cannot recruit now, when 27 positions are already vacant, is not the right answer.”
“No one is keeping the positions from being filled. The problem is that no one wants to do the job for the pay being offered and that attrition is eating up any new hires they do get so you are always playing catch up.”
So I guess they aren’t interested in filling any slots. Our son, filled out a application about 2 weeks ago for the PD. Today he called to check on the status of his application and was politely told, “Sir, we aren’t hiring any police officers.”
The next academy starts in October - I would think if they have all these folks leaving and they are understaffed - wouldn’t they be needing to fill those slots?
(side note: he’s worked for VCU Police/Security, Sheriff Crawford, and Asset Protection @ Target so it’s not like he wants to go from McDonald’s to Law Enforcement - for some strange reason, which I kind of admire, all Ian wants to do is be a policeman)
“We are not hiring” might more properly translate to “We have recruits currently in the pipeline and are not accepting applications at this time.”
Bigger departments can do recruiting and intake at the same time. I suspect that is not the case with PPD.
Tell him to continue to check back because once the current batch is in training/process, the answer will eventually change.
The other answer is that he’s just run into one of our famously competent city workers.