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05-23-86 Safety Comm Minutes4:00 P.M. MAY 23, 1986 t PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE The committee met in the Conference Room. Attending were Chairman Schindler, Committee member Saverud, Mayor Kennedy, City Attorney Neier, • Police Chief Stefanie, Fire Chief Larson, Animal Warden Kimbrell and Roger Hopkins, DIL. C. Schindler opened the meeting and when told that the Fire Department budget was not quite completed, excused Chief Larson, who had other business to attend to. Complaints on Dogs C. Schindler stated that we are having more and more complaints on dogs running at large, mostly on the west side, and asked Kimbrell how the problem could be solved. Lou stated that dogs must be within an enclosed fence/on a chain/or a hand held leash per the ordinance. When he finds a dog running loose, he follows it home, checks with owner, issues a ticket or takes the animal to the shelter. He explained the fines and stated that only one dog he has ever known of was destroyed for failure of owner to follow ordinance many, many times. C. Stefanie stated that the problem is worst this time of year and Lou's absence from work for sometime may have aggravated the number of complaints. He questioned if the community would support becoming extremely stern, he gets more complaints for excessive enforcement and for Lou following dogs home. What we need is timely information on where dog problems exist; finding out later doesn't help! It seems that when Lou is put on a specific problem, another is created elsewhere. About 1 out of 20 dogs are unlicensed. There are fewer complaints on the west side with the new • garbage system, but complaints of dogs running at large remain the same. C. Saverud suggested that since about 10,000 miles per month were traveled by patrol vehicles, possibly officers and drivers for other departments could generally observe situations such as dog and garbage problems, chuckholes, etc, and relay the information. C. Stefanie stated that officers did notice and report such things, but they were much lower priorities. Discussion of a serious dog problem at 8th Avenue, Kimbrell will follow up on this. It was decided to make the public more knowledgeable of the dog ordinance, that Mayor Kennedy will obtain information and publish it in his weekly column, The Mayor's Gavel. Traffic Stop Signs Discussion of the need for a stop sign at Hawthorne and Liberty Streets. C. Saverud moved and S. Schindler seconded to recommend this at the next council meeting. The same situation exists at Trinity Lutheran School at 5th Avenue WN and California. When 5th was redone 2 years ago, the sign was changed from 4 way into a 2 way stop; it should be made a 4 way again. Moved and seconded to recommend to council. Is -1 Y Police Department Budget _ s Responding to the proposed 5% budget cuts, Chief Stefanie stated that the first major problem with his budget is the salary line for crime control has been under -budgeted. This year particularly is over -expended because of a possible 3% error; salaries are pretty finite and are locked into the error. • A small possibility may be in accounting for two part time dispatchers -if being paid out of salary rather than overtime funding this could account for a small deficit but not a shortage. The crime control budget covers all 21 sworn personnel, 2 secretary -clerks and 5 dispatchers; STEP, meter maid and animal control employees are not included. Last year's figures cannot be cut 5% because of the error. Current salary budget should be $613,000, actually was $586,000. The only option for salary line in the upcoming budget is to use a revised figure recalculating the original amount , add the 3% raise before the 5% cut is considered. C. Stefanie stated that overtime budget may exceed the $18,000 a little because of a couple of extra clerical help put on for Canadian Days. He requested $24,000 last year, was given $18,000, but is again requesting $24,000. His department could possibly manage with $18,000 if comp time can be used. The Garcia Decision is pretty well gutted by Congress now and comp time is legitimate. If the council wants that flexibility, the department can probably maintain again. Stefanie explained that comp time is 1 1/2 for time worked but only straight 1 time for training. The present policy is to use the time within the same week, but this is not always possible. When comp time is used, dispatchers have to be replaced, other positions simply run short. The overtime is necessary, only other alternative would be to increase staff for backup personnel. C. Saverud asked whether the work schedule contributes to the need for overtime, and asked if the Chief had any strong recommendations regarding • overtime. Stefanie explained that because of the rotational nature of shifts, regardless of 4-10's or 8-5's, the same amount of overtime would be involved. A 40 hour week is not in the KPA contract and it would be difficult to change the contract. He pointed out that the overtime budget was nowhere near what another officer would cost. The highs can be covered better by maintaining the number of police we have even with this schedule and some overtime, he feels that the overtime is a good investment. C. Stefanie explained the criteria in scheduling: how full are shifts under any given schedule? Most important in scheduling is to consider calls for service at certain hours of day and certain days of week, and to have sufficient personnel on duty at the busiest times. If work is evenly spread, rotating shifts will not hit the busy hours of the day. The 5-2 work ethic does not apply to police work -busy hours would be missed. The 4-10 shift schedule works at the right hours. He explained a graph of service: from midnight to 2:00, busy, then drops until 6:30, noon is busy and activity peaks from 3-6 even more than noon, then climbs again from 9:00 till midnight. Shifts are grouped most closely to busy hours, with double shifts covering the busy hours. A -I personnel fills in on traffic oriented duties. He pointed out that the $24,000 overtime budget was nowhere near what another officer would cost. The highs can be better covered by maintaining the number of police we have even with this schedule and some overtime. He feels that the overtime is a good investment. -2- 0 .F r C. Saverud asked if an option would be for the city to get out of the felony business. Are we in effect double taxing ourselves with felony investigations which are prosecuted by the County Attorney's office? C. Stefanie felt this would create more harm than good. The job would not get • done as well nor as promptly. We wouldn't save as much money as hoped because the Sheriff's office couldn't take on the job without adding personnel: it is either pay to the City or to the County. The chief pointed to the Forsythe case with its countless hours and the fact that the Sheriff's office has 3 times more residential burglaries than we do. The County does not patrol the out -of -city residential area, we do. We have to look at proven prevention and benefit and at what we get for law enforcement dollars. M&O has been out to the bone every year, we may want to look at other than police hours priorities. In terms of public safety, the uniformed police officer, while an expensive commodity is one of our best commodities. C. Stefanie doubts that the same job could be done with non -uniformed help. He would like to say we could live without statistics: we pay one half a person's salary just to log in crime statistics but this is required by law. There was a brief discussion of eventual retirement of animal warden and the possibility of replacement with two part time personnel. This might not save much financially but maybe would provide better service for the money. It would not be feasible for A-I's to assist in these duties because of the nature of duties involved. Other discussions involved other retirements within the police department -none anticipated. There will probably be some patrol car purchases. Chief Stefanie and his officers are not convinced that smaller cars are more economical, based on past experiences with gas mileage, maintenance, etc. A smaller size van would be considered. • Chief Stefanie said that although the A-I's were scaled down as far as possible, if a position has to be cut, he would look there first. He prefers looking at shifting duties. His department has been operating short handed for some time and he has not requested additional personnel. He does not, however, agree that the budget is in a crisis situation, but we do have a financial problem. C. Schindler stated that we are not in a crisis but that we have lost roughly $250,000 in Revenue Sharing that must come out of General Funds. He stated that higher taxes are not feasible with the slump in the local economy. Stefanie replied that we have had an on -going financial problem for 7 years. He is not sure if the council is aware of the jobs city employees are doing: they are being conscientious, have become more economical and are willing to work with the council, but a better level of communication is needed. Rather than department heads and council members having separate meetings he would like to see everyone get together in a constructive way. The meeting adjourned at approximately 5:45 P.M. Markie Sabol Recording Secretary -3- Y