TRUTH SQUAD
I guess they were right - it is just like riding a bicycle. It’s been so long, you’d think that all the old habits would have been forgotten, but they’re still there. Oh, I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about the Republicans. There they go again. Time for the Truth Squad to set the facts straight on who’s zoomin’ who about public safety.
In the summer of 2005, it became apparent that the Police Department, due to an unusual combination of attrition (retirements and other departures), authorized leave (medical leaves, military service) and light duty due to injury or illness, was in the midst of a severe shortage of patrol officers. At the time, the Department’s authorized strength was 122 sworn officers and only 111 positions were actually filled. Of those 111, significant numbers of officers were unavailable for patrol duty because of medical leave or light duty.
Now, for those of you that were in solitary confinement, 2005 was an election year. The Democratic candidates, led by John Topping (who, lest we forget, is a retired police officer), put forth several ideas for recruiting additional patrol officers. According to the Hartford Courant, they laid out “an aggressive strategy to fill vacant police officer positions.” (See “A Push for Police Recruits, Democrats Outline Hiring Strategies,” Hartford Courant, July 30, 2005). John Topping was quoted as follows: “in order for community policing to work, we need a full compliment of officers on the street.” Kevin Zingler (who, lest we forget, has never been a police officer) said “having more police officers on the street is an integral part of the safety of the community … public safety needs to be our top priority.” (See “Public Safety the Focus of Democratic Campaign in Manchester,” Journal Inquirer, July 30, 2005).
Matt Peak (who, lest we forget, wrote in his second grade yearbook that he would someday like to be a police officer), scrambling to jump on the bandwagon, wrote a letter to the editor on August 6, 2005 in which he commented “they’re [the police] doing a good job -- we just need more of them. Identifying the systematic obstacles to hiring and changing the status quo would be responsible leadership.” Can’t argue with that, can we Matt?
Through the remainder of 2005 and into 2006, the Department, following some of the suggestions of the Democrats and implementing some of their own, did make impressive strides towards closing the hiring gap. As the 2006 budget season began, two more (to use the words of Matt Peak) “systematic obstacles to hiring” were identified: (1) authorized strength, and (2) funded positions.
“Authorized strength” is the maximum number of sworn officers (having the power to enforce the law) within the Department. The authorized strength of the Department had been set at 122 positions for well over a decade, despite the growth in the department’s responsibility for crime prevention and law enforcement - most especially related to the Buckland Hills retail area. Given that a significant percentage of officers will always be unavailable for patrol duty for legitimate reasons, a need to increase authorized strength was identified in order to increase the available pool of patrol officers.
The second obstacle was funded positions. Historically, for as far back as anyone remembered, the Board had never put enough money in the Budget to actually pay for 122 officers. It was always reasoned that with retirements and other attrition, it was practically impossible for the Department to have 122 sworn officers on the payroll for an entire 365-day year, so why budget for that? Well, the down side of this - the “systematic obstacle” (thank you, Matt) - was that this became a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don’t budget for 122 officers, you never get to 122 officers, and there’s no incentive to get to 122 officers because, if you do, you don’t have money to pay for 122 officers. Meanwhile, you’re paying more for overtime when officers go out for medical leave or other reasons because someone’s gotta do the job - crime doesn’t take a day off.
So, as part of the 2006 budget effort, the Democratic caucus increased spending for the police department by nearly 10 percent, fully funding positions for 122 officers (the current authorized strength) for the first time in anyone’s memory. But, the Democratic caucus also increased the overall authorized strength to 124 officers. The 123rd and 124th positions were not funded because it was highly doubtful that those positions would be filled within the fiscal year- it would have required hiring more than 14 officers in twelve months or less, or Topping coming out of retirement, neither of which is likely. Nonetheless, the Democratic caucus pledged that - if by some miracle they were filled - additional money would be appropriated to fund them.
Here’s where it gets interesting. The Republicans criticized the Democrats for not doing enough. In a public access video they recorded to explain their budget positions, the Republicans argued that increased police spending should be used for an authorized strength of 126 officers and funded positions of 124 officers. See “Budget Concern: Public Safety, Both Parties Seek Improvements, but With Different Funding,” Hartford Courant May 9, 2006 and “GOP Wants Cost of Living Increases with Exception of Police Department,” Journal Inquirer, May 9, 2006)
At the May 9, 2006 meeting for the budget adoption, the Republicans again urged that 124 positions be funded. Cheri Pelletier (who, lest we forget, once met a police officer), stated: “We however do favor endorsing Police Chief Berry’s request for the authorized strength of 126 officers with a minimum funding of 124. We believe that this level of manpower will achieve the proper staffing levels, alleviate an over-reliance that we have on overtime, maintain optimum officer performance levels, and establish a power shift that the Police Chief would like to do from 7 pm to 3 am to meet Manchester’s demand for service.” Sounds good. But, you know that would mean funding positions that we’re almost positive we could never fill in the next twelve months. But, we like the idea. Maybe next year.
In his Budget Message, Lou Spadaccini (who, lest we forget, has concerns about police officers), commented: “... the resources of the police department are being stretched too thin and good officers are being overwhelmed. We must give our police department the tools and manpower it needs to fight crime. We must also dedicate resources to combat neighborhood problems like the spread of graffiti and enforcement of our traffic laws. This is why the Republican Caucus proposed a budget for public safety that exceeds the recommendation made by the General Manager. We support the additional funding necessary to add four more police officers to the beat. We need to send a strong message that crime will not be tolerated and if you engage in criminal activity in the Town of Manchester you will be apprehended and prosecuted.” Strong message. Got it. Fight crime. Got it. More police officers. Got it. Book’em, Lou! You ‘da man, Lou!
Now, fast forward to the 2007 budget adoption. For 2007, the Democrats proposed a budget for public safety that would increase funding by 3.2% over the prior year and fund positions for 124 officers – two more than 2006 and full funding of the current authorized strength. Given the Republicans’ comments in 2006, you would expect they would enthusiastically support funding 124 positions in 2007, right? Wrong. The Republicans voted against the 2007 Public Safety budget. They recommended a public safety budget cut of $219,000 from General Manager’s recommendation and funding for only 122 officer positions, the same as 2006, but two less than the current authorized strength. Why? In the words of Matt Peak “in reality, finding, recruiting and training a fully authorized force has been a
challenge.”
Amazingly, - the Republicans at their July 9, 2007 press conference accused the Democrats of being “ disingenuous” and “pandering” to the electorate over public safety issues. They cited the Democrats’ decision to fund the Police Department at the full authorized strength of 124 positions as an example of this treachery because (they claim) the Democrats “knew they couldn't fill" those positions.
Huh? What? Disingenuous? Matt Peak and the Republicans take two diametrically opposed positions twelve months apart, and in the process bail out on a pledge to the voters to put more cops on the street. The Democrats pledge during the election that getting to funding of full authorized strength will be a “top priority,” and then carry through on the pledge after they are elected. Disingenuous? Please, don’t make me laugh.
Hiring more officers turned out to be more of a “challenge” than they had bargained for, so Matt and the Republicans just gave up. What did Matt tell us when he was running for office? “Identifying the systematic obstacles to hiring and changing the status quo would be responsible leadership.” Really? Matt, what do you call it when “changing the status quo” becomes too much of a “challenge” and you just simply quit and walk away?
If you’re looking to the Republicans for “responsible leadership” on public safety, look elsewhere.
They’re just not up to the challenge.
On July 12, Geoff Luxenberg kicked off his campaign for the Manchester Board of Education. Appointed to the Board in late 2006, Geoff has committed himself to closing the racial-achievement gap, integrating gifted and talented programing and implementing all-day kindergarten for every elementary school.
