10/15/2020
POLICE REFUTE FIREFIGHTER LED PROPAGANDA
Dear Hobart Residents:
It is truly with a heavy heart that I feel I have to write this letter to you. As your Police Chief, I have stayed away from using this office to engage the political fray that occurs from time to time. Those issues are meant to be sorted out by the elected officials and the citizens that are involved. However, when one department, some of its membership and its supporters are repeatedly making accusations and commentary that are not factual, and are, in fact, an insult to our officers, fulltime and volunteer, and administration, something needs to be said.
In police and fire circles, we have regularly used the saying apples and oranges for the responsibilities of police service and fire service. The job descriptions, duties, and department responsibilities are obviously very far apart.
SALARY & BENEFITS
I have heard and read firefighters complain about disparity in wages and benefits. These are negotiated areas with elected officials. Our representatives bring to the table what surrounding police agencies are making and negotiate for a similar wage.
I have also read firefighters exclaiming that the police officers did not deserve their $2500 raise that we had negotiated for 3 years ago. In fact, they were cheering and encouraging elected officials to reject our raise. The negotiated wage was $2500 year 1, $0 on year 2, and $2500 on year 3, which was less than 8% spread over 3 years. Instead, it turned out to be less than 4% over those 3 years. The police officers were not happy and after some intense but failed negotiation, they have moved on without making a public spectacle. Even though persecuted by the world view of “defund the police” and fellow public safety mocking our efforts, police representation never placed blame on any other city department or its spending, which has been a very unprofessional habit of the firefighters.
However, when negotiating a raise in “First Class” pay for police officers five years ago, which is a scale that directly impacts retirement pay, the Police Union President and myself insisted that the firefighters get the same $10,000 increase in that line. Why? Because it was fair, and regardless of an individual’s fitness, both careers take its toll on the person. Both pensions allow retirement at the age of 52 and it should.
OVERTIME
I was budgeted $60,000 in overtime for the entire department this year. By May, We had spent an estimate of $23,000 and were projected to stay within our budget. The Fire Department is reported to have spent $400,000 by the same time and it is reported to have gone grossly over budget. I am not sure how many firefighters work actual fire suppression, maybe less than 50, but that is about $8,000 a piece in four months. Every department in the city had their paid overtime halted. Police officers were bothered by it but did not protest or blame the firefighters for it. They did not speak of the seemingly unnecessary 2 extra medics and 2 extra firefighters working every day even though the calls did not seem to support the extra staffing. Oh yes, COVID happened, but why would the actual call for service numbers not show an increase.
On multiple occasions, firefighters or their supporters have shown a list of highest overall earnings in the City of Hobart. The fact is a large amount of the compensation listed for police officers is state or federal grant overtime. We apply for and participate in many state and federally funded initiatives that reimburse the city 100% of the overtime, and often times, 100% of the costs of the use of the patrol vehicle. These initiatives keep our community safer and are a smart investment of available tax dollars that you worked hard for and would otherwise go to other communities.
PUBLIC SAFETY INCOME TAX REVENUE
When our county approved a Local Option Income Tax, half of the revenue portion was to go to public safety purposes. I have been Chief for over 7 years and for the first couple years we were able to use about 20% of it for police vehicles.
Realizing there was increasing pressure and competition for that funding; we worked on our efforts in a federal initiative, Domestic Highway Enforcement (DHE). It is a joint task force with the State Police to address all crimes and criminal activity on the highways. We have officers that get paid overtime to work DHE patrols and we submit quarterly mileage reports for reimbursement for vehicle use. Often times, large volumes of drugs (heroin, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, methamphetamine, etc…) and other contraband are taken off the streets before reaching the neighborhoods. During these investigations, varying amounts of US currency is lawfully seized through the DEA. Through the federal court process and hearings, most assets are seized and submitted in portion for forfeiture to our local agency.
I have read of firefighters and their supporters claiming that the police department is wasting tax dollars on fancy police vehicles, 4 wheel drive trucks and SUVs, which leaves no Public Safety Income Tax revenue for the firefighters and their equipment needs. The fact is with the exception of the first couple years at 20% or so; NONE of $1.1 or $1.2 million dollars is spent on police vehicles with very little on the police at all. Income tax dollars are almost exclusively encumbered with firefighter expenses and equipment. We have used asset forfeiture proceeds to compliment the expense of our fleet, not income tax dollars. Even though a city with 2 public safety departments, fire and police, the fire department spends and encumbers well over 95% of those dollars. Dollars that were not available before Brian Snedecor became Mayor. YET, the naysayers have the nerve to blame the police department and the Mayor on overspending on the police. Actually, the truth be told, the inverse has occurred.
As a Police Chief, I have run as lean a budget as possible while still providing my community the very best services that I can. Administratively, my Captains and I scour all the available sources for state and federal funding to assist our department with keeping up with the needs of the community. We don’t ask for any praise or accolades for what we do, but we try to give credit where credit is due (and our Clerk Treasurer Deb Longer) has encouraged and helped us along the way. The fact is we are very proud of how far we could go to provide the best training and resources at the least expense, and it is very unfair to have another public safety entity grossly mislead our community on the facts of funding. The FACT is that if we were not as diligent as we are with every dollar and every resource available to us, we would have had to compete and prioritize our needs for the income tax dollars leaving something less for the Mayor to spend on the fire department. WE are not asking for praise, BUT please leave us out of your misleading rhetoric.
STAFFING
This is another area of apples and oranges. We are asked to do completely different tasks. I have exactly 67 police officers today. A couple of years ago, in the height of our grants for personnel efforts, we reached 69 officers. The last 2 were hired with State Asset Forfeiture NOT tax dollars. Yet the Fire Department was afforded the opportunity to hire two also WITH tax dollars. Out of 67 officers left, I have 3 more retiring and will be out of the workforce soon. I have 11 more that can retire at anytime, and with the “I hate law enforcement sentiment” in this country, who could blame them.
Out of the 64 left actively policing, 44 of those are wearing a uniform and answering your calls in Patrol. 6 more police officers are working as School Resource Officers with 70% compensation back for the entire cost of their salary, rank, benefit package, and vehicles from the School City of Hobart. It is a great program that benefits both the community at large and the children. They spend every day in the school with the kids, and train, take their personal time owed, and assist with park patrol in the short amount of time left in the summer. 3 are assigned to drug investigations with 2 regularly working DHE. 9 are working detectives, 1 working code enforcement, 2 Captains and me in Administration keeping it all going. There are a lot more responsibilities for a police department outside of answering your call for help, but your call for help always comes first. Of the employees above, a detective, our victim’s advocate, and an assistant are all funded with grant money from the violence against women act.
We also have about 20 volunteer Reserve Police Officers that, unfortunately, have been a little maligned in recent weeks by firefighters and their supporters. Our Reserve Officers train for hundreds of hours with training officers before we put them out on assignments. They do not handle every type of situation that a fulltime officer does and nor should they. They do VOLUNTEER their time to come out and make our community a better place. I recently read a fire union representative state that the only reason our reserves do what they do is for $20-$40 an hour in “side job” money. Honestly, this was a “slap in the face.”
The FACT is that is completely untrue for those in our program. After several hundred dedicated hours and 20 or more hours a month, a few do work a side job from time to time with compensation from private entities. The vast majority of them do not work side jobs and only volunteer in our community. Some have no interest in being the fulltime police at all. Some desire to be the fulltime police and this gives us an opportunity to train and work with them before they start. Unfortunately, we cannot hire them all so we do train some who go off to other agencies to work, making our region a better place. To disparage my reserve officers or disrespect their volunteerism for a political agenda is shameful.
Staffing is an apples and oranges thing as I said. We answer nearly 30,000 calls for service a year with the 44 officers working Patrol. IF you must compare staffing numbers, those 44 officers in the trenches is what gets the visible police work done.
We even got creative with our scheduling to reduce overtime and put more officers out during peak call times of the day 12pm (noon) to 4am (morning). Of course, we have major incidents that cannot possibly be managed with the officers on the street. For that, we do the same as the fire department and call for mutual assistance from our neighbors. We make ourselves available to them. For major events, like a protest on US 30, many of my officers adjusted their schedules to be available or took compensatory time only (at straight time rate) to ensure the job got done. And our neighbors helped us like we helped them.
Do we have sickness and ailments? Sure we do, and at times it does strain our personnel. Due to the emergent and unexpected nature of our calls, COVID has hit the police department the hardest. My officers are not complaining. They are not out telling the citizens, “sorry I could have gotten here faster if there were more of us.” AND if they did, I would be looking to discipline them for frightening the public unnecessarily. No one could or should try to predict what “coulda, shoulda, woulda” happened. Only the good Lord can know our ultimate fate.
COMMUNICATION AND COOPERATION
I feel it necessary to close this letter on the issue of communication and cooperation. To begin, I have discussed these issues with the Fire Chief. These are not a surprise to him by any means. I have repeatedly asked him to rein his firefighters in when it comes to “bashing” the police department or their unfair rhetoric toward us. He regularly would respond that he talked to the individual or “the guys” about the issue and stated they would do better. Yet, here we are month after month after month; the police department continues to be the whipping post for this nonsense.
I have tried as a Chief to cooperate. I personally consider Fire Chief Randy Smith a friend and it is part of my heavy heart to cause him grief (or my other friends who are active and retired firefighters). The fact is that IF you persist on spewing untruths and nonsense rhetoric publicly (which their firefighters and union rep have), there has to be consequences. Our community deserves to know the truth and not only the political pandering of firefighters and their supporters that are taking advantage of a cancel culture with their nonsense.
By law, each of our line items whether in our budget or in asset forfeiture can only be used for set, specific purposes. As the Clerk Treasurer and our routine audits can attest to, we take that very seriously, as the law requires.
On occasion, I have extended an olive branch to try to assist the fire department. Under Fire Chief Ellenberger, we negotiated the purchase and funding of two 4wd trucks when we purchased ours to get the firefighters and medics through blizzard type weather. Under Fire Chief Kerr, we purchased rifle rated ballistic vests to go with each piece of equipment that he felt needed them. Under Chief Smith, we purchased a multiple battery charger unit for recharging drone batteries to keep it airborne, and later new batteries for the same drone since older ones were defective. We negotiated the lease and funding of a new copier machine at their fire station. We offered space in the Police and Court Complex with access to servers, phones, and technology to 3 or 4 fire administrators that come and go daily. Finally, for years now and into the future, we will use asset forfeiture, if available, to relieve the burden on Public Safety Income Tax revenue, which considering our fair share should equate to $500,000 - $600,000 a year.
What have we received in return? Now you know.
Sincerely,
Rick Zormier
Chief of Police
