Addressing Budget Issues

Recent media coverage of budget shortfalls for the City of Lakeland naturally included references to the police department. People are concerned as to the impact on public safety services when positions are being cut. I want to take a moment and list a few key points to explain what we are doing now and are prepared to do in the future.

• It is important to note the current adjustments are necessary due to reduced revenues from sales tax and communications tax collections. Property tax reductions have not hit us yet.
• The recent budget reductions and loss of authorized positions was for Fiscal Year 2008 (the current year). We have not yet finalized our budget for the coming year.
• We eliminated 10 police officer positions from across the entire department. This was accomplished without any layoffs as we saw the wave coming and began to create vacancies some time ago. In other words, we have been working under-staffed for quite some time and have experience to guide us through these tough times.
• The impact on these cuts means follow-up investigations may take a little longer to complete and we are doing less surveillance operations in high crime areas. We also have several vacancies in our Neighborhood Liaison Officer section, so we are stretched to cover all local neighborhood meetings.
• Because the vacancies are across the board, the impact on how we deliver services is somewhat diluted as no one area is taking a hit. For instance, our response time to emergencies remains unchanged from recent years.
• We eliminated 9 non-sworn positions, including some vacant public safety aide and administrative or support positions. Again, no layoffs occurred. Also removed from our budget were 20 vacant part-time or reserve positions.

And so what are we doing to prepare for the future? Here are some key points to reassure the public we will get through these challenging times.

• Our earlier strategic planning started an initiative several years ago to convert police officer positions in support areas to non-sworn employees, thereby redeploying the officers to field duty. We now have one additional crash investigator and two more officers assigned to night shifts because of this initiative. We will be able to keep these positions.
• We started an efficiency study of our patrol deployment strategies and response protocols to ensure our performance standards reflect best practices in our industry. We believe we are already there, but the best way to find out is to look at the data to be sure and make changes as necessary.
• Following the guidance of the City Commission, we are aligning our resources to identify the key or core services the public expects from a police department as well as identifying the expanded or enhanced services the community has come to expect from us. Core services, such as crime fighting and responding to emergencies, will remain while expanded services will face cuts from these budget reductions.

And how are we doing so far? Our figures show UCR Part I crime is down 8% or so for the first four months of 2008 compared to the same period last year, and traffic crashes continue to reduce in numbers. We remain confident we will get through these challenging budget times with minimal impact on our ability to fight crime.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere

Comments

[Asst Chief Bill LePere]

Thank you sir for your kind comments. Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting them published. Your comments came in as I was going on family vacation and did not get reviewed until I returned home. Again, I apologize for the delay.