The City Council’s Finance Committee reviewed the budgets of the police, fire, dispatch and animal control departments Tuesday night and questioned the impact of establishing the city’s emergency dispatch function as an independent department.
Police Chief John Camerota and Captain Michael McCabe presented details of the police, dispatch and animal control budgets.
McCabe said the creation of the dispatch department has had a direct impact on the police budget which Mayor Daniel M. Knapik cut by $549,118 or 7.13 percent. McCabe had submitted a budget request of $6,948,543, while Knapik allowed $6,399,424.
Many of the cuts, such as full-time salary and overtime, are directly connected to the creation of the dispatcher department. The salary for the dispatchers and some of the overtime funds were transferred to the new department’s budget.
Knapik cut police overtime from a request of $315,000 to $265,000 which McCabe said may be an accurate number as the year progresses.
Other cuts included the severance, supply, building and vehicle line items.
Severance was cut from the requested $224,118 down to $50,000 which McCabe said will be short about $48,000 with the number of recent and pending retirements. The police unions have agreed to a payout of severance over three years.
“Severance is a real problem,” said McCabe. “I have to have $97,000 in the budget. Other things impact severance as well as retirements.”
McCabe said that three officers who are retiring this year will cost the department $62,951, while pending retirements within the next year will add another $34,000 to that liability.
Knapik cut the supply account from the requested $307,200 down to $212,200. McCabe said he based his request on the fact that the department, and other municipal departments who had fuel cards for the police fuel pumps, used 60,000 gallons of fuel a year. McCabe said he used a number of $4.50 a gallon when he was preparing his budget numbers this winter and the price of gasoline was climbing, with a projection of hitting $5 a gallon this summer.
Both the building capital improvement ($30,000) and the vehicle replacement ($180,000) line items were cut to $0. McCabe said Knapik is including capital improvements to the building in a $14 million energy efficiency bond and that he will use another approach to replace six line cruisers at a cost of $30,000 each.
McCabe said the department is switching from the Ford Crown Victoria cruiser package to the Ford Interceptor cruiser package. Ford is discontinuing the Crown Victoria line.
Traditionally the department switched equipment, such as the light bars, from old Crown Victoria cruisers to new Crown Victoria cruisers. However, the Crown Victoria equipment does not fit on the Interceptor models.
The department has a three-year cycle for replacing line vehicles, meaning that the additional equipment expense will impact its budget for the next three years, then the equipment can be transferred to new replacement cruisers.
McCabe said the department is hiring new officers because the number of retirements is the highest since the mid 1980s. The cost of equipping a new officer is $5,000. Three newly hired officers are now attending the police academy, three more will be hired in the near future and three additional hires are pending.
McCabe also addressed the dispatch department budget with the committee members, stating that the new department is underfunded because salary was based upon the number of dispatchers working in the Police Department. Four additional dispatchers and a supervisor have been hired.
Knapik approved the amount requested, $395,696, but McCabe said the salary line item should have been funded at $410,000 to reflect the current number of employees, that overtime funding should have been at $100,000 based on history of that function at the Police Department, and that $10,000 for education and shift differential should have been included, bringing the budget to $520,000.
“I know I will be short,” McCabe said. “If I need more, I’ll come back to the mayor and city council for appropriation.”
Fire Chief Mary Regan said that she may have to request an additional appropriation. Regan said she based her overtime request on the average for the past three years, but that Knapik cut $25,000 to reflect the elimination of dispatchers at that department.
“I think that (Knapik) has hope that moving the dispatchers out will have an impact on overtime,” Regan said. “If we don’t have injuries or sickness, we may not need more.”
Fire Department severance was also cut from $187,000 to $50,000. Firefighters have not yet agreed to new contracts that would spread severance over three years.
“I could have a retirement within the next few days,” she said. “If that happens, I’ll be $14,000 short this year. And I have (retirement) letters from six or seven people.”
Knapik also cut the department’s vehicle account, moving that expense into the capital funding line item. The department is entering a seven-year lease-to-own contract to replace its platform truck. The department will pay $199,000 a year to acquire the $1.4 million vehicle.
