Reyes: OT Budget ​“Honest & Realistic”

The city’s interim police chief promised alders that his upcoming year’s proposed overtime budget is ​“honest and realistic,” as opposed to the current year’s, which recently required a $4 million-plus transfer from debt service and police salary in order to break even.

He also revealed that the department plans to move its internal affairs office to Sherman Parkway to get closer to the community, and is looking to hike towing fees.

Interim Police Chief Otoniel Reyes made that promise Monday night in the Aldermanic Chambers of City Hall during a six-hour Finance Committee budget workshop regarding Mayor Toni Harp’s proposed $556.6 million operating budget for Fiscal Year 2019 – 2020 (FY20).

The hour-and-a-half aldermanic review of the police department’s proposed budget represented one of Reyes’s first public opportunities to discuss his vision for the force since he took the reins fromrecently retired former Chief Anthony Campbell.

It also gave Reyes an opportunity to assess the current state of a department that has helped achieve record-low crime in the city even as its struggles with three years without a union contract, massive officer outmigration to better-paying jobs in the suburbs, actual overtime costs that are double budget, and near-daily protests that require police protection even as they criticize policing at its core as violent and discriminatory.

“I am happy to say that overall the health of the department is very good,” Reyes said at the top of his presentation. Despite the great uncertainty presented by so many years without a police contract, he said, the quality of the officers who remain on the force has never been higher.

Reyes was asked about the recent wave of protests following the shooting of an unarmed couple in Newhallville by a Hamden police officer and a Yale police officer. ​“I’m really proud of the work that our officers have done, not just to allow people to express themselves in demonstrations, but to do so in a professional way that puts us all in New Haven in a positive light,” he responded.

Realistic Overtime

Reyes’ predecessor termed the current fiscal year’s $4.4 million police overtime budget unrealistic last August just a few weeks after it had been passed and took effect. Reyes Monday evening described the $6.65 million proposed overtime budget for next fiscal year as realistic, reasonable, and achievable.

“We feel this is an honest and realistic budget in terms of overtime,” he said, ​“so that we’re not here again asking for money.” He said the proposed budget was written primarily by retired Chief Campbell, but that he had some input as well.

In early March, the alders signed off on transferring $2.2 million from the police salary account and $2 million from the debt services account to cover anticipated overages in this year’s police overtime budget. (The fiscal year ends June 30.)

According to the city’s latest monthly financial report, the department is still expected to end the year having spent $8.1 million on overtime, which is nearly double its approved budget.

Reyes said the new number is realistic because the department has been averaging around between $115,000 and $130,000 in overrtime per week in the six months since officials came to the alders with the budget transfer request in November. The department can stick to those overtime numbers going forward, Reyes assured the alders. Thus the $6.65 million projected total.

“Why do you feel so comfortable with that number?” Board of Alders President and West River Alder Tyisha Walker-Myers asked. ​“In the past, our number has been much higher than that.” What, she pressed, has the department done to change how it handles overtime that would lead Reyes to believe he can limit overtime to roughly $1.5 million less than what the department actually expects to spend this year?

“We’re just paying attention more,” Reyes said. ​“We’re looking at every single overtime.”

In particular, he said, the department has started ​“rebalancing” the number of officers assigned to morning, evening, and late-night patrol squads on a much more regular basis. The recent rush of retirements and resignations has left squad numbers in flux. That sometimes leads to a disproportionately high number of officers working at relatively light times of the week, and too few officers on duty during heavier times, simply because of changes in personnel.

“We’re constantly now rebalancing the squads,” he said, so as to minimize necessary overtime and maximize use of on-duty officers.

Walker-Myers thanked him for the explanation, because an expected change in overtime expenditures has to correlate to some actual change in department behavior, not just wishful thinking. ​“In the past,” she said, ​“we always hear, ​‘We need more.’”

Fewer Officers

One of the more significant year-over-year changes in the department’s $42 million proposed budget is a reduction of 61 budgeted positions, bringing the total number of sworn officer positions in the budget from 495 to 434. Reyes said that cut should save around $2 million in the salary line, which can be applied to the overtime budget.

East Rock Alder Anna Festa asked him to go over not just the total number of budgeted positions, but the total number of actual officers: How many are on the street? How many are on sick leave? How many on worker’s compensation?

Reyes responded that the department currently has 386 sworn personnel, including patrol officers, detectives, supervisors, chiefs, everyone. That includes 39 recruits currently working their way through the police academy. Another 17 officers are currently on sick leave, he said. A half-dozen are on worker’s comp. And another four are on administrative leave.

What about the number of officers specifically assigned to patrol? Festa asked. Is that number under 300?

It is, Reyes replied. The number of patrol officers is currently 228. One should subtract the number of officers on sick leave, worker’s comp, and administrative leave to get the total number of officers currently available to patrol city streets.

“That’s the realistic number of who is patrolling right now,” Festa said.

Does the department know how many officers it actually needs in order to patrol a city the size of New Haven? Festa pressed. ​“Have we done any audits?”

“I would welcome an audit,” Reyes said. ​“I certainly think that’s a smart thing to do.” He said that New Haven’s community policing model requires officers to engage with city residents, at community management team meetings and at neighborhood events, in ways that other cities’ police forces aren’t expected to do. ​“We pride ourselves on community policing,” he said, ​“but that’s very resource-intensive.”

Contract Woes

Westville Alder and Finance Committee Vice-Chair Adam Marchand asked Reyes and acting Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Sean Matteson about when the city can finally expect a new police union contract to be signed. The contract, which expired nearly three years ago, has been in binding arbitration for months.

Marchand said that he keeps getting the impression from high-ranking city officials that arbitration is completely out of the city’s hands, and that everyone just needs to wait for the arbitration panel to make its decision as to the details of the final contract.

“Isn’t it possible for parties to withdraw the case from arbitration and resume bargaining?” he asked. ​“Isn’t it a fact that the administration has a lot more agency than it’s choosing to have in terms of moving towards settlement? Is it not a choice that your administration could make to pull out of binding arbitration and go back into negotiations?”

“It’s absolutely a choice,” Matteson replied. And if the parties were to so agree, then the union and the city could stop arbitration and resume negotiations.

However, he said, ​“it’s impossible for one side just through sheer will to achieve a negotiated contract. But yes, it is possible.”

“I would urge at least this side of the equation to make that happen,” Marchand said to Matteson.

Hill Alder Dave Reyes asked Matteson for an update on the city’s search for a new full-time police chief. Will the mayor be looking within the department, outside of the department? Will the city continue to be led by acting department heads?

“We’re trying to deal with the issue of police chief as soon as possible,” Matteson said. ​“The department deserves to understand who’s in command. That’s something that will be addressed as quickly as possible.”

Increased Towing Fees, Renting The Shooting Range, Relocated IA

Reyes also pitched alders on potential new sources of revenue that the department is considering for the coming fiscal year.

For one, the mayor’s budget has proposed increasing towing fees from $77 to $89. Currently, Reyes said, all $77 that residents pay when their car is towed goes directly to the pockets of the towing company. With the proposed fee change, $77 would still go to the towing company, and an additional $12 would come to the city.

Matteson explained that state statute allows municipalities to charge as much as $105 for towing. ​“We’re trying to find a median on something that could generate some revenue,” Matteson said, without unduly burdening residents by pushing the towing fee to the statutory maximum.

Reyes said that the department also plans to rent out the new firing range on Wintergreen Avenue to other police department throughout the state as a way of offsetting some of the costs required to run that range, and eventually to bring in some money to the department, too.

“That would be a good way for us to reciprocate getting services from them,” he said.

Festa asked if the department would consider renting the range to individuals unaffiliated with any police departments, as a way to bring in revenue and identify existing gun owners.

Unlikely, Reyes said, since opening the firing range to members of the public would increase the wear and tear on the facility. It would also open increase the city’s liability in case a member of the public got hurt.

Reyes also revealed that the department plans to move its Internal Affairs division from the police headquarters at 1 Union Ave. to the police academy at 710 Sherman Pkwy. That way, residents who want to file complaints with the department don’t have to walk into the heart of the headquarters downtown, but can instead visit a neighborhood site that will provide ​“a more discrete location to enter complaints,” he said.