So, when the city grows, nonprofits who do a lot of services for the City of Madison don’t get increases based on population growth, many years we didn’t even get a cost of living increase, so why does the Madison Police Department get such increases? If they get 4 officers every year to keep pace, shouldn’t community services get an commensurate increase?
More importantly, I think these ratios have a SERIOUS flaw, the City of Madison police are not the only department policing Madison, we have the campus police, the capitol police and the sheriff department. Those officers are not factored into the ratios. Then there are also the police in the adjacent municipalities (Town of Madison, Monona, Fitchburg, Middleton, Shorewood Hills, etc.) very close by in case of emergency. I find it humorous, but sad, that in 2008 we spend 100’s of 1000’s of dollars for a study because the police said we couldn’t use the ratios that they are now, once again saying we should use. I was on the 2003 police staffing committee, and there were lots of questions about the ratios, so that is part of the reason they did the 2008 study, and now here we are again. Sadly, maybe Mike Verveer remembers this, but I don’t think anyone else on the council does and we’re going to have history repeat itself with absurd results.
Anyways, here’s the police justification of why they need 4 more police officers every year. I’ll have another blog post about the chief’s unprofessional dumb-ass comments that they put in writing.
TO: Public Safety Review Committee
FROM: Assistant Chief Sue Williams
SUBJECT: Letter from Dr. Gregory Gelembiuk regarding police staffing information presented to PSRC
My presentation on April 12 provided the members of the Public Safety Review Committee (PSRC) with a historical overview of staffing levels for the Madison Police Department (MPD) from 1988 to the present. I reviewed the recommendations of several staffing studies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) compiled average ratio of police sworn personnel per thousand (population) was used as a benchmark by three of the four studies. This is the traditional and prominently applied benchmark for evaluating staffing levels across the country. (While acknowledging the assertion that the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) finds the measure to be inadequate in and of itself for evaluating staffing requirements, the fact remains that it is still the most frequently invoked benchmark, and serves as a starting point in staffing discussions.) In 2008, the City contracted with a private company known as Etico. The Etico study looked exclusively at the workload for police officers assigned to patrol services, and did not make references to the FBI average ratio information. At the end of the day, all of these four studies over the past 20 years have come to the same conclusion: the MPD should increase staffing levels.
In 1993, the recommendation of the MPD Study Committee on Staffing was to increase the Department’s authorized strength by 30-45 officers in order to bring staffing levels to an average by state or national comparisons. The committee further recommended achieving the increase in staff by adding 10-13 positions each year for the subsequent three years.
In 1997, the recommendation of the Police Staffing Committee was to increase the authorized strength for both commission and non-commissioned Department personnel to be more in line with state and national staffing levels, and to return the Department to levels more consistent with those maintained in the past. The committee further recommended establishing a 1.8 officers per 1,000 population by the year 2004. Based upon 1997 population estimates, 16 additional commissioned personnel would be added to achieve the 1.8 per 1,000 population targeted recommendation.
In 2003, the recommendation of the Police Staffing Study Committee was that the MPD should adjust the authorized strength from 382 sworn law enforcement personnel in 2003 to 395 sworn Department members in 2007 in order to maintain a minimum-staffing ratio of 1.8 law enforcement personnel per 1,000 residents. In addition, the committee recommended that the Department adjust that ratio to 1.9 sworn police personnel per 1,000 residents by 2008, and consider modifying the ratio to 2.0 sworn personnel per 1,000 residents by 2010. Finally, this committee noted that with annexations increased staffing would be necessary. The composition of every staffing committee included mayoral staff and alderpersons, as well as MPD commanders and union representatives. In addition, the 2003 committee added City Finance personnel.
Regardless of the recommendations from these committees, it should be noted that the current MPD ratio of sworn personnel per 1,000 population is 1.87. Just to maintain this ratio, Madison would need to hire 4 additional officers annually to keep pace with the projected growth of the City. It’s also important to note that the FBI provides average ratios for the entire nation, as well as breakdowns by region. Clearly for comparative purposes, the ratio for the Midwest is most applicable to the MPD.
The 2008 Patrol Staffing and Deployment Study, conducted by Etico at a cost of over $60,000, outlined a staffing analysis process for evaluating the need for patrol staffing. This study indicated that the City should add 13-25 patrol officers and 5 patrol sergeants.
As noted earlier, Etico provided an exhaustive review of patrol services only. I noted in my presentation that the MPD has many specialized units that provide proactive and progressive policing to our community. These specialized services include Community Policing Teams, Mental Health Officers, Gang Officers, Neighborhood Officers, Neighborhood Resource Officers, Traffic Education Safety Team (TEST) Officers and Community Outreach (CORE) Officers. While the Etico process reflected a deficiency in personnel, this process did not consider or review the substantial level of non-patrol services the MPD provides. In spite of staffing levels that have failed to reach those recommended by the various committees, the MPD has remained committed to the decentralized community policing philosophy of added proactive services.
The City is now in the process of initiating another police staffing review. We believe that while a new study is being conducted, it would be disingenuous to dismiss the previous studies. The recommendations of all these studies have never been adopted or fully implemented. We are at a crossroads where we can no longer continue to provide an optimal, comprehensive level of service with the ongoing degradation of personnel. Each and every study came to the same bottom line: the MPD is short sworn personnel, and short significantly.
Dr. Gelembiuk wrote that my presentation compared our staffing to cities with populations of 250,000 or greater. I stated that Madison is expected to reach a population base of 250,000 by the end of this year or the beginning of next year. Based upon the certainty of projected population growth, we are proposing a reasonable and modest four-year staffing plan. This plan is not extravagant; we are merely trying to attain staffing levels recommended in a 2003 study (a study which stated we should reach these levels by 2010). If we were pursuing the levels utilized for cities with a population of 250,000, our plan would be significantly greater.
Larger cities have different policing needs. We are not Milwaukee, nor did I claim that we are. But it is useful to look at the only city larger than Madison in Wisconsin, and review the level of police services connected to staffing. Interestingly, Milwaukee has a ratio of 3.1 sworn per 1,000 citizens. Racine, which is smaller than Madison, has a ratio of 2.5 sworn per 1,000. Kenosha has a ratio of 1.98 sworn per 1,000. For the MPD to get to a ratio of 1.9 sworn per 1,000, we would need to add 8 positions this year. To get to 2.0 we need to add 32 positions. If we use the Etico process to evaluate patrol staffing only, we are currently short 14 sworn positions. If we were truly trying to be extravagant, we would ask for the 189 positions needed to attain the ratio for cities with a population of 250,000 or more.
In my presentation, I stressed that the MPD is keenly aware of the financial hardships created when expanding operating personnel in huge increments, as was done in 2008 when 30 officers were added in one year. We want to avoid that scenario at all costs. That is why we developed a plan to create a reasonable, incremental staffing increase over the next four years, by adding 10 sworn personnel per year.
Alder Maurice Cheeks recommended we look at other cities that are among the “top safest cities”. That is an excellent suggestion. We will do that. But when doing so, we must also take into account the size of these cities, their geographical region, as well as the level of comprehensive services provided above and beyond patrol services. We also need to recognize that crime is only one driver of police workload. Much of what police do is not related to crime and is not reflected in crime rates. Focusing on violent crime is an improper and inaccurate manner to estimate police staffing needs.
Dr. Gelembiuk focused on officer/population ratios, and completely ignored the findings of the Etico staffing analysis. This methodology – developed by the Northwestern University Center for Public Safety and consistent with the IACP’s staffing methodology – is an objective, data-driven process that examines actual workload to estimate patrol staffing needs. This methodology indicates that just the patrol section of the MPD is currently understaffed by 14 It is ludicrous to suggest that Madison could function with 65 fewer officers today, while providing the same high quality service for all citizens. When I shared Dr. Gelembiuk’s letter with Chief Koval, he exclaimed “What world is this guy living in?! When I ask the city residents if they feel safer in 2016 than they did in 2003 they all vehemently declare absolutely not! One need only look at the 20 shots fired calls within the past 30 days to sufficiently debunk Dr. Gelembiuk’s utopian version of reality in Madison today.”
The City will ultimately have to decide if the style of policing for which Madison is nationally recognized, and frequently referenced as a model of “best practices,” is something they want to continue. This will require increasing the number of sworn personnel as the City grows. The alternative is to shift away from specialized units to a more traditional, reactionary approach. Our Department tries very hard to make decisions based on what the citizens of Madison tell us they want and need from the MPD. We are open to looking at new and better ways to determine our staffing needs, but as Dr. Gelembiuk mentioned, a national model does not currently exist. Until we find a different or better method, we are trying to voice our concern that staffing levels do not become stagnant or worse, slip backwards. We are hoping for support to implement the recommendations of previous staffing studies while a new method is being researched.
