Paul Bass Photo
Cop recruits take oath in November: Preparing to hit streets, cut OT costs.
The police overtime budget is slated to top $10.6 million next fiscal year, as the department grapples with its lowest number of sworn officers in decades.
Those two data points sat at the center of Wednesday night’s Board of Alders Finance Committee workshop about next fiscal year’s proposed New Haven Police Department (NHPD).
The in-person meeting took place in the Career High School auditorium on Legion Avenue.
Wednesday’s meeting marked the Finance Committee’s second set of departmental workshops in their ongoing review of Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed $633 million general fund budget for Fiscal Year 2022 – 23 (FY23), which, if approved by the full Board of Alders, would go into effect on July 1. Click here to read that proposed budget in full.
Thomas Breen photo
Acting Police Chief Renee Dominguez (second from left) and Assistant Chief Karl Jacobson (third from left) waiting to present at Wednesday's meeting.
Seated towards the back of the stage — where alders sought out better lighting amidst a host of tech difficulties — Acting Police Chief Renee Dominguez and city Budget Director Michael Gormany told the committee that the NHPD’s proposed FY23 general fund budget comes in at $48.5 million budget. That’s roughly $3.7 million higher than the current fiscal year’s.
The main driver of that proposed budget increase, Dominguez pointed out on Wednesday, is a jump in overtime.
The department’s gross overtime budget for FY23 is $10.65 million. That’s nearly $1.6 million above the roughly $9 million in overtime budgeted for Fiscal Year 2021 – 22 (FY22).
That jump looks even higher when you take into account the $2 million in federal aid-backed overtime reimbursement that is included in the FY22 budget but not in the FY23 budget. Taking out that $2 million reimbursement, the mayor’s proposed increase in city-funded police overtime is actually closer to $3.6 million for the fiscal year to come.
Meanwhile, Dominguez said, the police department is currently projecting to end FY22 at the end of June with gross overtime costs of $12.6 million — well above what the department’s overtime budget is for FY22 or, as proposed, for FY23.
Why such overtime overages?
“We are at historic lows for officers,” Dominguez said: The lowest the department has seen in at least 30 years.
She said the department currently has 336 sworn police officers. And 30 of those are currently in the police academy.
Which means that “I currently have 306” sworn officers out of a budgeted force of 408.
“I am down 102 spots for sworn police officers. That is our lowest for 30 years,” Dominguez repeated. And so, for police to answer 911 calls, “to provide services that the community wants and deserves, it causes overtime.”
This stress on New Haven’s current police force should be relieved a bit by the 30 officers-to-be currently working their way through the academy, she said. After they graduate from the academy, they’ll spend 12 weeks under the supervision of a field training officer (FTO) before they can operate on their own. And, Dominguez said, she’s hoping to seat another academy’s worth of new police officers later this year.
“The sooner they can enter the academy, the sooner they can exit.”
Dominguez pointed out that the mayor’s proposed budget also includes a new lieutenant position and a new sergeant position. “We are a young department,” she said. Creating more opportunities for promotion and lowering the officer-to-supervisor ratio will only “help our officers to be able to do a better job and also be supported.”
Police brass present during Wednesday's budget workshop.
What is the “goal number that we’re trying to hit for sworn officers?” Board of Alders Majority Leader and Beaver Hills/Amity Alder Richard Furlow asked. What is the number of police officers that the city needs?
“That’s a question that is a larger conversation,” Dominguez replied. “Right now, I know that I need more than 336, or 306, because we’re really feeling these impacts of this very, very low number.”
“We don’t police in a 911 system” alone, she continued. “We’re way more of a community policing [system.] We want to do so many more programs. We want to do so many more details.” But with the current number of officers, she said, that is a stretch.
“I can say to you that the number that we’re currently at,” she repeated, “is not the number” the department or the city needs.
Are there any current plans to fill the two vacant fully-funded assistant chief positions? Furlow asked. Currently, only one of those three positions is filled, by Karl Jacobson.
Dominguez said that the greater priority for the department right now is to hire and fill those proposed new lieutenant and sergeant positions.
What’s driving these vacancies at the police department? Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers asked.
“I think it’s a national trend that we are seeing a decrease in police officers,” Dominguez replied. “We’re not getting the recruitment like we used to in the past.”
It’s potentially a generational issue, she said. “This new generation potentially likes not being stuck to a workplace for 20 years,” she said. They like to move around from job to job.
Also, during Covid, “many police departments around the state did not hire. We couldn’t do recruitment. Now, all of the municipalities around the state are pulling from the same pool of applicants.”
Prospect Hill/Newhallville Alder Steve Winter circled back to the proposed gross overtime budget. That $10.65 million number is almost a quarter of the police department’s total proposed budget, he said.
Is this just a function of the time it takes for classes to move through the academy? “Are we not getting people fast enough to avoid this enormous overtime budget?”
Dominguez said that the department has roughly 20 retirements and resignations a year. If the department is able to seat a class of 30 each year, “we will at least be plus 10.” This year, she said, the department is hoping to have two classes go through the academy.
“If we’re constantly adding” officers, those overtime costs will drop.
Blame rests at the feet of the woke Unite Here Board of A's who have been laser focused on attacking Yale. Woke, yet fast asleep.