Police merger analysis-part two-Appleton

The following is my personal analysis of the Appleton Police Department Meger Proposal. These are observations regarding the proposal after careful research of the police department merger processes. Outagamie analysis to follow.

Analysis of Appleton Police Department Merger Proposal

Facilities

APD does not give a cost estimate for any remodeling that would be need at the Grand Chute station in order to move their Northern District of operations to the Town Hall building. In fact, Chief Walsh indicated to the Safety and Licensing Committee at the meeting on February 14, 2008 that Grand Chute would be expected to pick up all costs, referring to these costs as “tools for the project.”

APD does not propose leasing out space from GC for using the GC location as their Northern District base of operations. Grand Chute taxpayers will, in effect, be paying for APD to use space in the station without charge, including the offices, parking garage, phone lines, internet and utilities.

An increase in services is not offered to GC residents with APD operating out of GCs building, as there is no proposed increase to staff additional hours at the station.

The facility issues that APD target as unsatisfactory for GC are untrue and offer little benefit to Grand Chute. They include:

Firearms range.

The town has a good relationship with Fox Valley Technical College, located in Grand Chute, for their firing range instruction. This is a state-wide, accredited program that officers use to renew their firearms certification.

Training room

Grand Chute also has a large training room, and can use other rooms at the town hall. GC officers will have access to a large community room one block away when the new fire station is complete fall of 2008.

Evidence process rooms and storage

Grand Chute does have state of the art evidence process rooms, as new equipment was purchased when the town hall was built eight years ago. Right now, there already is property and evidence storage, and the empty space at the town hall can serve as additional storage when town grows. Furthermore, the proposal does not address who will own the existing equipment with an APD merger, and does not guarantee prevention of removal of said equipment from on site.

Fleet

The report does not address the detailed cost expenditures for fleet maintenance. Appleton wants to buy out the fleet, but will Appleton charge back Grand Chute for vehicle maintenance and gas? Much of Grand Chute maintenance is done by a staff mechanic, and the vehicles are also washed at Grand Chute. This is an additional annual expense, which is above the cost of the merger and not identified.

Operational Considerations

Over the years GC has developed a respectable, dedicated, investigative staff that has gained recognition for their work, and has a high percentage of solvability to their cases. The department currently has five investigators, who specifically address town issues. In APD proposal, GC will lose of control of the investigative units and will no longer have a dedicated investigative team. APD proposes to take two investigators, including GCs police computer specialist, who was contracted out to Appleton for $10,000 last year. GC would lose revenue by giving up this specialized staff person, as officer is contracted out to other departments as well. The remaining investigators would be placed as patrol officers or placed on line positions. This is a disservice to our golden badge, award-winning, specialized investigative team, and a disservice to GC residents.

A tri-county investigative task force could be formed instead, to address the cross-jurisdictional problems citied in the Appleton proposal. This would be similar to the MEG unit, where officers from all municipalities in the tri-county area pool their resources together for multi-jurisdictional crimes. This would be a benefit to all communities, not just Appleton and Grand Chute.

There is no breakdown of what the CSO patrol or duties will look like. There is no clear explanation of how the expansion is going to take place, or how vehicle maintenance will be performed. There is just a verbal speculation that there is the possibility or opportunity for expansion.

Neighborhoods in transition

Grand Chute takes similar approach in identifying problem areas, and utilizing the town’s resources. This approach can most recently be seen with April Aire Mobile Home Park. Looking at call logs, and reacting accordingly is a basic principle of police work and is already instituted in the town. Merging with Appleton does not increase the benefit for this area, as the town will not be able to use the city inspectors, health inspectors and fire department. None of our departments are cross-jurisdictional. There would have to be a separate coordination with Grand Chute, which is already in place. When Town Supervisors receive direct complaints from citizens, they would have to be filtered through the Deputy Chief, who ultimately answers to the Appleton mayor.

Uniforms

Keeping uniforms the same, except for the patches and badges, is not only a catalyst for low officer morale, but an indication in the lack of understanding of the camaraderie needed for a successful merger. GC officers will physically be labeled as not being fully included in a merged department to both to APD officers and the community. Non uniformity ultimately says they are not truly part of the team. Additionally, GC officers are not assured they will feel a part of a merged department with the uncertainty of an 18 month trial period. GC officers will be subjected to a state of limbo during this period, with the potential for them to feel like SCAB workers at a foundry. They do not know if they will be “shipped back to where they came from.” This is not fair to the dedicated officers of Grand Chute.

Municipal

There is no strategic plan or clear financials as to where revenue collected from municipal citations will go. Currently, fees collected from citations help offset our judicial budget. Citations within a merged department will be written as Appleton Metro, and there is no indication that the revenues from these citations will be kept in Grand Chute. In fact, the proposal seems to lean toward it becoming a revenue stream for Appleton. However, the judge and his staff’s salaries of $79,800 comes out of the Municipal Court budget. There is also a $60,000 line item for professional and legal services for representation of contested cases. There is no indication of which municipality will pay these fees, even though Appleton seems to want to collect the revenue. A significant clarification needs to be addressed in this area, and cannot be worked out “as we go along.”

Crime Analysis and Operations

There is no indication that non-represented people in the clerical office will have same seniority and wage advantages as the Appleton staff.

Union

There is no indication that the Union will agree with the terms, only that the union will have to bargain with a hopeful satisfactory outcome. Furthermore, there is no cost identified with the staff and union representative time needed to collective bargain, or who will pay for this additional cost.

Staffing needs

There is no strategic plan or 3-5-10 year outlook concurrent with GC future growth projections. Taxpayers do not have estimation as to how adding personnel will affect the budget down the road. Right now, the town board is working hard to find money in the existing budget for additional staff and not filling other requested positions, in favor of directing money to hire more officers. A loss of ownership in the department could lead to a lack of vested interest for future board members to do the same.

Other financial issues and hidden costs

The new chief deputy will in essence be building a merged department from scratch. It is impossible that one person can be the sole coordinator for an entire merger. It is a reasonable assumption that staff will be assigned to help the deputy chief. There is no indication of who will be assigned, or how much time will be taken away from each department to facilitate this merger. There is no indication how much this will cost, how much time will be spent away from normal duties, or who will pay the bill.

There are legal issues that need to be addressed and they will require the services of a legal team. There is no estimate to the cost of these services, or who will pay for them.

Grand Chute officers will need to go through training in order to acclimate themselves to Appleton’s policies and procedures. There is no indication as to what kind of training will be needed, what costs are associated with this training, or who will pay for these costs.

Grand Chute’s plan was to reduce the overtime budget to fund additional officers once the department is at full staffing levels. Currently, while new officers are trained, full-time and part-time officers fill the vacant shifts. This is the main reason Grand Chute has had to budget enough funds to cover the overtime shifts. The Appleton proposal uses this overtime budget to match Grand Chute officer salaries to Appleton officer scale. This creates a void of funds that were to be designated toward hiring additional officers.

Conclusion

The APD proposal offers many benefits for their department, and little in return for GC residents, with GC taxpayers footing the bill. An18-month test drive is unacceptable. The amount of unresolved issues that are passed off with a “we’ll figure it out as we go along” approach undermines the credibility of this proposal. A lack of understanding or explanation of cost analysis associated with such a merger also prevents consideration.