FY 2008 Proposed Budget Summary - Laserfiche WebLink

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Public Safety Services `9. Due to changes in the criminal justice system, misdemeanor crimes and other low-level violations are no longer prosecuted by the District Attorney's Office. The City adopted new offenses into the City Code and has absorbed some of this workload. With continuing budgetary constraints and cuts to County services, future decreases in the prosecution of local crimes may be expected. These prosecution changes add to police workload as additional time must be spent building cases to reach a higher financial-loss threshold so that they can be prosecuted. 10. Over the last 25 years, the Eugene Police Department (EPD) has experienced a large amount of change. As a result, it is not clear that the department is now appropriately staffed and organized to meet the law enforcement needs of Eugene. During the deep economic recession of the early 1980s, police staffing across Oregon was reduced dramatically. In Eugene, one-fifth of the sworn officers and all of the non-sworn Community Service Officer positions were cut from the budget.. Subsequent tax limitation measures and rapid population growth has left Oregon, including Eugene; with far fewer police by any measure than most states and cities in America. Whether measured on a per capita, per crime, or per arrest basis, Eugene has fewer police than 80+ percent of the cities in America. Eugene's Index Crime rate (largely property. crime), is also higher than 80 percent of cities in America, driven largely by property crime which makes up the bulk of the index. 11. In late 2004, the International City/County Management Association and the Police Executive Research Forum. (ICMA-PEKE) were hired by the City of Eugene to conduct a management review of the EPD's law enforcement hiring and selection, supervision and internal affairs processes. Among other things, ICMA-PEKE recommended the City "engage the services of a consultant skilled in workload and job-task analysis to determine if there are an adequate number of police personnel to accomplish the mission and objectives of the department and whether or not personnel are used as efficiently and effectively as possible." The Magellan firm was hired and is expected to produce their staffing study in late spring 2007. The staffing plan will permit on-going annual assessment based on changing circumstances of both workload and service expectations and will be used to develop a long- term plan to guide future staffmg decisions for EPD. The consultant was asked to identify any current organizational structures or practices, which could be changed to significantly improve efficiency and. effectiveness. 12. One of the significant recommendations of the. (ICMA-PEKE) review, and one consistent with the environmental scan associated with the new strategic plan, was to "fully implement community policing." Presently, patrol staff struggle to respond to calls for service with little time available for proactive, problem-solving activities. The desire and recommendation to implement community policing implies sufficient staff for this purpose and any staffmg. analysis must consider the gap between desired service and capacity. 13. The Police Department's headquarters at City Hall is undersized, with an inadequate amount of space to meet the needs of the public, police personnel, or equipment storage. The existing City Hall is an inadequate facility for public safety functions due to the high seismic risks inherent in the building's design. Concerns about the building's ability to withstand an earthquake were first documented in the City's 1992 Facility Condition Report. A seismic evaluation prepared in 1995 indicated that even a moderate earthquake would likely destroy City Hall, rendering police personnel and their equipment incapable of providing needed emergency 46 . _ __