Police Eye OT Boost Amid Cop Crunch

Top city cops moved to transfer $4.3 million of unused salary funds to help cover staffing-gap-induced overtime overages — as they also looked to prevent another fiscal hole next year by upping the overtime budget and hiring more detectives, supervisors, and animal control officers.

Board of Alders Finance Committee alders took the first step toward approving an overtime-driven budget transfer for the rest of this fiscal year on Wednesday evening, shortly before hearing a presentation on the police department’s proposed $51.3 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2023 – 2024 (FY24). That was the upshot of the Finance Committee’s latest meeting and budget workshop, held in-person in the Aldermanic Chamber on the second floor of City Hall.

The NHPD’s proposed FY24 budget — part of Mayor Justin Elicker’s overall $662.7 million general fund submission – would expand the department’s Youth Bureau, including an additional school resource officer; fund reforms in the animal shelter; and expand funding for officer training programs. If the Board of Alders approves that budget, it would take effect on July 1.

Meanwhile, the current FY23 budget transfer request proposes reallocating a total of $4.6 million in salaries for vacant police positions toward overtime and other costs. That request received a unanimous favorable recommendation from the Board of Alders Finance Committee, and now heads to the full board for further review and a final vote.

The new plan for that to-be-transferred $4.6 million entails spending $4.3 million on overtime pay, to cover the cost of fulfilling mandatory staffing levels as the department continues to face numerous officer vacancies. The department has a total of 410 budgeted positions for the current fiscal year, 334 of which are currently filled, leaving the department at 81 percent capacity.

The transfer would put the total amount of overtime costs in the department at $15.1 million for the current fiscal year, up from just over $13 million spent on overtime last year. Originally, the city had budgeted $10.65 million for police overtime this year.

The proposed transfer would come entirely from within the police department’s own budget — specifically, from salaries designated for unfilled positions.

“Obviously, it’s a big number there,” Police Chief Karl Jacobson told alders on Wednesday as he detailed the salary-to-overtime transfer request.

He said that the year’s overtime spending is partly tied to an increase in walking beats. ​“We spent a lot of money on walking beats, and I’m determined to keep spending a lot of money on walking beats.” He added that this past winter, ​“We sat on more crime scenes than we expected” during a spate of shootings. 

Jacobson said he had more individuals working overtime in the investigative unit, which he credited with making seven homicide arrests so far in 2023 — the same amount of arrests made in all of 2022.

Anticipating that alders would question the uptick in overtime costs, he explained a cost-reducing strategy he hopes to roll out once more officers are hired and the department is able to more easily fulfill staffing minimums. He envisions creating an overtime budget for each of the city’s 10 police districts, which district managers could control and adjust in collaboration with one another — a de-centralized system compared to the current practice, in which the chief is the primary person concerned with how overtime costs affect the budget.

“If we get to a place where my staff knows, the chief’s in hot water [about overtime costs], they’re gonna work as hard as I am” to bring those costs down, Jacobson argued. He added later that such a system would help train district managers to take on more responsibility in the department as they advance their careers.

Westville/Amity Alder and Majority Leader Richard Furlow asked about how this year’s overtime costs compare to years when staffing levels were higher — say, in FY16, when the department had 495 budgeted positions and 432 actual officers.

Budget Director Michael Gormany responded that in that year, overtime costs amounted to about $5.7 million. At that time, he noted, officers were paid a lower hourly rate. 

Jacobson added, ​“violent crime and crime scenes drive overtime.” When there are more crimes to solve and more crime scenes to man, more overtime hours are required, he said.

The department spent $7.825 million on overtime in FY19; $7.8 million in FY20; $8.19 million in FY21; and $13 million in FY22 ($2 million of which was funded by the federal pandemic-relief American Rescue Plan.)

“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to fill the vacant positions,” said Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers. ​“Fortunately, we do have the money” to pay for the higher overtime costs, using unspent funding within the department’s own budget.

“That money is necessary in order to keep New Haven safe,” said Dixwell Alder and President Pro Tempore Jeanette Morrison.

The sole member of the public to testify on the matter Wednesday was Caitlin Maloney, a community organizer with New Haven Legal Assistance Association who lives in West Haven. Maloney compared the proposed $4.6 million transfer — and the proposed police budget of $51.3 million — with the budget for the newly-formed Department of Community Resilience.

The Department of Community Resilience is tasked with implementing harm reduction and prison diversion, re-entry, and prevention programs, including COMPASS social workers and peer counselors that will eventually be dispatched to low-risk 911 calls. The department is primarily funded by short-term American Rescue Plan Act money, in addition to $2.176 million from the general fund, an amount proposed to stay the same in FY 24.

Maloney urged alders to allocate more funding ​“to get at the root of important issues that our police department is dealing with every day,” such as homelessness and substance use disorder, as they weigh whether to increase the police department’s budget.

The committee alders unanimously voted to favorably recommend the budget transfer, which will next go before the full Board of Alders for a final approval.

Larger Youth Bureau, More Training?

Finance Committee alders next heard a presentation on the police department’s budget proposal for FY24. 

That budget includes a proposal to add one lieutenant, three sergeants, and three detectives to the police force, along with three civilian positions: two additional assistant animal control officers and another crime analyst.

Three of the new positions — a lieutenant and two sergeants — would expand the department’s Youth Bureau, working specifically with kids and teens. Jacobson elaborated after the meeting that he hopes to eventually have a total of eight School Resource Officers (SROs) stationed in New Haven Public Schools (there are currently five, according to Jacobson), as well as three Police Athletic League officers, and a lieutenant and two sergeants to lead the bureau.

SROs have been a controversial presence in schools, particularly after student opposition to police stationed in schools surged during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Critics of SROs argue that the officers perpetuate the school-to-prison pipeline by responding to behavioral incidents at a law enforcement level and are disproportionately placed in majority Black and brown schools. Proponents of SROs argue that the officers keep schools safe and, following a tenet of community policing, are better positioned to de-escalate student encounters than outside police officers who aren’t familiar with the students involved. In 2021, after debating the policy, the Board of Education voted to retain SROs.

While the department is already short-staffed, Jacobson said, ​“I believe I can fill those [new] positions too.”

East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked whether the new lieutenant and sergeant positions would entail taking officers off walking beats.

Jacobson replied that those positions would only be filled when more officers join the force at lower ranks — perhaps around November. 

When promoting, ​“we’re weighing risk versus reward,” Jacobson said: is it more important to have an officer on a walking beat or a detective solving homicides? ​“I’m awake at night because of those questions,” he said.

The proposed budget will also increase training funds by $70,000 — the same amount that Jacobson plans to transfer from unused salaries to training expenses this fiscal year.

Jacobson argued that training is an important investment because ​“we’re a young department,” after a number of more senior officers have retired.

According to Jacobson, recent department-run trainings have featured community members and clergy explaining ​“how different parts of the community react when cops show up,” and family members of homicide victims demonstrating, ​“This is how we want you to tell us about the death of loved ones.” Soon, he anticipates a training on installing child car seats so that officers can then educate and provide car seats to community members. 

The funding will also support officers who seek out trainings in other towns and cities. Jacobson said he’s made a general practice of approving requests for trainings that officers bring in, as a way of boosting morale, supporting officers’ career goals, and improving the department’s practices. ​“The more we can train [officers], the better they’ll be,” he said. 

An Animal Shelter Funding Boost?

The new civilian animal shelter positions, meanwhile, would contribute to a broader planned overhaul of the New Haven Animal Shelter. The animal control-operated shelter has been under investigation by both the police department and the State Department of Agriculture after reports of malnourished dogs surfaced in January.

Jacobson told alders that the department’s review found that there were ​“way too many animals per personnel,” prompting him to create two more civilian positions. He added, ​“I was devastated by those pictures. We just don’t want that to happen again.”

Jacobson is also planning to expand the animal shelter’s non-personnel budget by $63,773 for FY24. The new funds will cover increased food purchases and a shift from twice-monthly to weekly veterinary visits, among other initiatives. 

“We need to put some money and care into this animal shelter,” he said.

Furlow asked Jacobson about discussions between New Haven and Hamden about creating a regional animal shelter based in New Haven.

Jacobson said he anticipated that New Haven will stick with its independent animal shelter, based on different expectations from the two municipalities. On Friday, the New Haven Register’s Mark Zaretsky reported that plans for a joint Hamden-New Haven shelter have officially fallen through.

“Does the animal shelter euthanize?” Furlow asked.

Yes, Jacobson responded. ​“It’s very caring. Conscious of money spent and how sick the animal is,” he said, adding that euthanizations are performed by veterinarians and overseen by affiliated Friends of the New Haven Animal Shelter and Humane Society groups.