Board of Trustees Minutes

2121 West Lake Street

President Craig called the Meeting to Order at 7:30 P.M.

PRESENT: Trustees William Manton, Wesley Eby, Joseph Nicolosi, Robert Packham, and President Rodney Craig

ABSENT: Trustees Toni Carter and Lori Kaiser

Mr. Hummel stated at the retreat, the Board asked staff to look at the police staffing and the rental residential property program. He continued the Police Department provided extensive background documentation. He stated the direct cost for each new police officer was approximately $105,000.

President Craig stated this was an informal presentation and that questions may be asked and answered during the presentation. Chief Moser gave a power point presentation. He noted there was an increased demand for services and that some programs were discontinued, such as DARE. He noted from their study, approximately 9 to 19 officers would be needed. He stated the day shift minimum staffing for patrol was 1 supervisor and 4 officers, and for nights it was 1 supervisor and 5 officers. He stated this was formally established in 1995. He stated that this was restrictive and that responsibilities and workloads had increased considerably. He noted that detectives were averaging 20 hours of overtime each week. He commented each Fall, officers were asked where they would like to serve and none of the investigators opted for detectives.

He continued that the Police Department had 52 sworn authorized positions. He stated their report was over a three-year period and six categories were looked at: unfilled vacancies, basic training for the academy and field training, extended training, extended illness, military leave, and family medical leave. He noted there was a trend in understaffing, and we were never staffed at the 52 authorized. In reviewing a chart, he stated their best months in 3 years were February 2007 and December 2006 because they were only 4 positions short. He stated the worst month was September 2007 because they were short 12 officers at one time. He continued that in June, they averaged 8 officers not being staffed. He reiterated they never had 52 officers at one time.

He stated minimum staffing on the day shift was troublesome at 6:00 a.m. with 1 sergeant and 4 officers working the street. He stated 6 days per week there was a bond call, where prisoners must be transported to court, and patrol officer(s) were out of action transporting the prisoners to the Rolling Meadows Court House. He stated staffing was then dropped to 1 supervisor and 2 officers on those days. He wanted to raise the minimum shift by policy or directive from 1+4 to 1+5. However, he noted once that was done, there would not be enough officers assigned to those teams to staff it.

Chief Moser stated what he had seen over the past three years was that calls for service and the time the officers had to spend on them had increased by 10%. He noted the statutes over the past years increased, there were changes in the workforce by increased family and medical leaves, pensions that were portable from one department to another, and what had happened in particular to the Hanover Park Police Department was that they had to rely on forced overtime. He stated overtime was good, when you wanted to do it, but as it built up, it caused burn-out. Unfortunately, he stated suicide was high among police officers and they were very cognizant of that fact. He noted in the 2008 budget the administration remained the same but the patrol was changed. He stated they shifted personnel and that detectives went from 4 to 6, taking 2 officers from traffic and 1 crime prevention officer, with detectives working evenings without a supervisor. He stated he changed the sergeants in patrol from 4 12-hour shifts to 3 8-hour shifts, increasing patrol by one and increased detectives by 2 + 1 sergeant, but it eliminated the crime prevention officer and 2 officers from traffic.

Chief Moser noted there were methods to measure needs and one of those measures were the number of officers per thousand and calls per officer.

He noted there were national and county averages. The national average was 1.6 officers per 1,000; DuPage average was 1.36 and Cook averaged 2.24. The number of calls per officer in Hanover Park was 834 per officer per year and in DuPage County, only West Chicago had higher numbers than Hanover Park. In Cook County there was a high call volume with low staff. He reiterated that by the FBI Midwest average of 1.6 /1,000, we would need 61 officers or higher and to meet the DuPage/Cook average of 2.2 /1,000, we would need 84 officers or higher.

He continued that with the shift relief method of 5 officers every day, the day shift needed 9 officers on each team and evening shift needed 11 ¼ assigned to each team. He noted we currently had 8 on one day shift team, 7 on another, and nights were 8 and 8. He stated patrol needed 41 officers and he had 31 now; therefore we would need to hire 10 more. He noted that going from 1+4 to 1+5 was a policy decision. He also stated comparatively day shift could be 1+4. Chief Moser stated the Fire Department had 10 on duty at any time with 3 required to be supervisors. He stated that in the Fall & Winter, the Police Department averaged 744 calls for service per week and that the Police Department handled 13 times the number of calls with half the staff and 1/3 of the supervisors compared to the Fire Department.

He continued that the calls for service and time were 21 minutes of obligated time per officer on patrol. He noted based on those averages, we would need 50 officers which would mean to hire 19 more officers.

In conclusion, he noted with those calculations, an addition of 9 to 19 officers would adequately staff patrol, with 13 being average. He recommended the priority of first 2 officers to day shift; then to the 2^nd shift teams, then to promote another sergeant in patrol, with 4 sergeants in patrol at 12 hours, and then as more staff were added, to continue to put officers in patrol and refigure to make the beats smaller in geographic areas (no longer use cross-beat) thus reducing times to a call. His last recommendation was for crime prevention. He noted that the schools had great programs and that the officers become familiar at the school and the squad car itself was a preventative measure.

It was questioned how many chronic shortages were there with leaves and how many were receiving salary and how many were not. Mr. Hummel stated that it depended on what the leave was for, i.e., workers compensation loss was funded in part, training pulled salary, including sick time, and military leave was 100% funded by the Village. He was questioned on how much unexpended straight time salary we had and answered the bottom line for last year was that the Police Department was slightly over budget. It was noted that while two positions were off the payroll, it was costing 1½ times (in overtime) to fill the positions and that we were losing dollars, not gaining them. It was also noted that 2007 was an acute year with 7-12 positions off and more individuals were off last year than in other years; the numbers were getting worse on an annual basis. It was stated the portability of pensions from one Village to another was occurring and more experienced officers were leaving and that if the stress level was not lifted, more would be leaving. It was stated that we were spending money for 52 officers while there were actually 45 on staff.

It was also noted that it was an even wash with regard to paying overtime or hiring a new officer. Mr. Hummel further stated he did not believe they would be saving money by hiring more officers. It was noted that the average employee in the Police Department had worked here 10-12 years, thus making time off for vacation 3 weeks.

Mr. Hummel stated the Police Department had done an amazing job with regard to performance, CALEA accreditation, and the lowest crime rate in decades despite manpower shortage issues. While he stated more was always better, his job was to bring the budget in line with revenues and he questioned what future revenue sources were there to fund these services. He stated his recommendation would be brought forth on Feb 28 for additional staffing positions, 1 Patrol position and 1 position in Code Enforcement. Further discussion resulted in stating more than one patrol position was needed and the Code Enforcement position was needed as it was eliminated previously and the appearance of the Village suffered because of it.

Other suggestions were to increase the sales tax, to resurrect the vehicle stickers, to add cameras at intersections, or to maximize the Home Rule tax. It was questioned if we could increase the transfer tax stamp and answered it had to be with a referendum. It was noted that 5 positions were added last year. An information tally favored adding 2-3 more positions plus the Code Enforcement officer. The Board asked the Village Manager to come back with the additional positions and additional revenue sources and to not bring the budget with only an increase of one position.

The next topic addressed the Rental Residential licensing for single and duplex homes (attached and detatched). The cost of $180 for licensing would make the position for enforcement as a revenue neutral program. It was noted that 70% of the derelict homes had renters and in working with the "slum lords", these homes would either be fixed up or the owners would sell. It was noted that it would take 4 to 5 hours to inspect each building and stated that the perhaps the first 50 could be documented and phased into a program. It was noted a good place to start would be the problematic areas like Tanglewood or Larkspur and the goal would be to eventually get to the 800 rental properties.

President Craig thanked Chief Moser and his department for their fine work on this report and he challenged the Village Manager to go forward.

Sherry L. Craig