Aurora, Colorado’s experience with police staffing mandates

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Several people have sent me this story, and they assure me that they have sent it to local newspaper editors and reporters where, of course, it went to die.

So I'll write about it as a favor. Aurora Police staffing mandate causes inefficiency (Opinion by Bob LeGare 9/17/2008):

Following the historic "Summer of Violence" in the Denver area in 1992 the Aurora City Council and the Aurora Police Association worked to place an arbitrary mandate on the number of police officers that had to be hired by future Aurora city leaders. The number chosen was 2 police officers for every 1000 Aurora citizens. The hiring number was not based on any professional or managerial analysis; rather it was based on an "average" including many urban eastern cities with high inner city crime rates. Aurora is not comparable to urban eastern cities and a more accurate average would have used western cities with similar population levels.

The ballot question originally proposed by the City Council in 1993 included a ¼% sales tax increase and a restaurant tax. [unlike Prop. 200 which is an unfunded mandate] Restaurant owners were successful in getting City Council members to drop the tax on restaurant dining; however, the City Council members did not replace that portion of the 2 per 1000 funding plan. After much debate the 1993 City Council placed the question on the ballot knowing that the sales tax would only fund six years of 2 per 1000 police hiring.

The 1993 City Council consciously chose to let a future City Council figure out how to solve the funding shortfall. That funding shortage and some 2 per 1000 operational flaws now plague the current Aurora City Council, city managers and the police chief. Today's City Council needs to cut about $10 million from the 2009 budget and part of that shortfall is caused by the cumulative effects of the 2 per 1000 hiring mandate. In many prior budget years City Council has cut other important city services to fund the police-hiring mandate established in 1993.

The primary problem that has been created by this 2 per 1000 hiring mandate is that city managers and the police chief are forced to hire additional police officers when additional officers are not needed. Many necessary police services are provided by non uniformed officers and this mandate does not account for this law enforcement reality.

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Many police services can be provided by skilled non-uniformed law enforcement staff, but not in Aurora. Aurora city leaders have no money to hire these non-uniformed police personnel because city leaders and managers are forced to hire uniformed police officers to meet the 2 per 1000 hiring mandate.

Today we have a condition in the Aurora Police Department where the chief cannot hire needed crime lab technicians (non-police officer) because there is no money left in the budget. We have two of three police stations in Aurora that close at night because the police chief has no money in the budget to hire front desk clerks (non-police officers). It is customary for police stations to be open at night to be available to citizens needing help, but not in Aurora because there are no funds available to hire civilian desk clerks. The police chief could place a uniformed officer at those two front desks, but that would be rather wasteful. The police officer salary is more than double the desk clerk salary.

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Under the current 2 per 1000 staffing requirement there is no reference to patrol officer staffing levels. Aurora has 625 uniformed police officers and according to the 2008 Matrix Consulting Group police study, an average of 225 Aurora patrol officers are on duty for each shift. That is less than ¾ of one officer per 1000 citizens and the 2 per 1000 mandate has no bearing on this patrol staffing allocation. The 2 per 1000 staffing requirement should be modified to make patrol officer hiring the focus of any assigned numbers. This is the area of law enforcement that most directly benefits Aurora citizens.

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Police services are very important to citizens of Aurora but citizens have stated that other city services are also important. Firefighters, libraries, parks, recreation, code enforcement, road maintenance, and many other services are needed to maintain our great quality of life in Aurora. The current 2 per 1000 police hiring mandate forces city leaders to spend taxpayer dollars in an inefficient manner and wasteful spending is never good public policy. If you ask, most people will say that they want more cops rather than fewer. Nonetheless, the citizens of Aurora deserve to know about the inefficiencies that have grown from the 2 per 1000 ballot question placed before them fifteen years ago.

When Aurora citizens understand the inefficiencies in the current 2 per 1000 police staffing mandate I believe that they will choose to amend the plan. Aurora citizens want adequate police staffing and efficiently run government. It is up to the current City Council to begin the process of improving the 2 per 1000 police hiring mandate.

Arbitrary staffing levels not based upon an in-depth analysis of actual needs and requirements (which are constantly changing over time) is inflexible, inefficient and unnecessarily costly. Arguing for an arbitrary mandatory staffing level is like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. (Now you understand the graphic. The bowling pin is a nice comic touch). It is a meaningless exercise and is a terrible way to make public policy.