How many police officers does a city need to run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? According to La Center Police Chief Marc Denney, his city needs more than its current number of five.
Denney told La Center city councilors on May 13 that the La Center Police Department is stretched past its breaking point, and urged the council to approve hiring at least one more officer.
“Five – five healthy people – is the minimum needed to run 24-7, 365 days a year,” Denney told the councilors.
With two of his five officers out sick and a sergeant coming off of an extended medical leave, the La Center police chief is dealing with a serious staffing shortfall, he said.
“We have had times when we have had no officers in La Center,” Denney said. “We don’t have anybody to pull from … and there have been gaps in coverage.”
The problems started in 2010, Denney said, when a police officer died and the city decided to not fill that position. Since then, the number of police calls – along with the city’s population – have increased, while police staffing levels decreased.
In 2010, the city of La Center had seven police officers; a population of 2,800; 2,388 calls for police assistance.; and officers accumulated about $13,000 in overtime. Flash forward to 2014. The police department had six officers; the city’s population had increased by almost 10 percent; there were 600 more police calls; and officers earned more than $60,000 in overtime pay. Now, the department is down to five officers and Denney said his department is “burning through overtime” without any alternative if officers want to staff the police department all day, every day.
The chief said he often calls on the county’s sheriff’s department as well as the Ridgefield police department when he’s short-staffed, but cautioned that this is only a temporary solution and would not make financial sense to depend on in the long-term.
“The way things are now, I’m lucky if I can cover all shifts,” Denney told the councilors on May 13. “There is no wiggle room. … We’re operating one deep. If I have an officer out sick, there’s just nobody left.”
The councilors – excluding La Center Mayor Jim Irish, who was away from the council’s May 13 work session due to a family emergency – were torn between wanting to help the chief and trying to understand if the city could afford to hire additional police officers.
Councilor Al Luiz said he would be willing to take money from the city’s reserve fund to hire an additional officer. And Councilor Randy Williams agreed that the city’s police department seemed in need of at least one additional officer.
“It sounds like we need to investigate filling the position we didn’t fill (during the city’s 2015 budget cycle) and maybe add another (officer) in 2016,” Williams said. “That’s what going through my mind.”
But other councilors worried that the city couldn’t afford to hire another officer, at a minimum cost of $120,000 including benefits.
“I want more data,” said Councilor Joe Valenzuela. “We have to discuss what’s going to happen to the budget.”
Valenzuela said the council has “lived in la la land” for too many years and needs to discuss the possible financial ramifications of the proposed Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s casino, which could have a negative effect on the private cardrooms inside La Center’s city limits. Currently, the city relies on those cardrooms for a good chunk of its revenues – about $2.5 million annually.
Councilor Liz Cerveny, La Center’s former mayor, said the city’s police department has been dealing with staffing shortfalls for many years and empathized with the police chief’s concerns.
“All of that overtime becomes very wearying and takes a toll,” Cerveny said.
“Yes,” Chief Denney agreed. “Morale is very low … the officers are burning through overtime. They have no backup, with only one officer on at any time. It’s not a good scenario to have.”
Councilor Greg Thornton said having a decent level of safety “for the citizens and for the police officers” was paramount, but urged caution over using the city’s reserve funds to pay for additional police officers.
“We need to take a long look at this, especially with what’s going on at the junction (concerning the possible Cowlitz tribal casino),” Thornton said. “Our revenues could go down, and I think we need to proceed with caution … if we dip into our reserves to fund the general fund, the problem is that we’re going to run out of reserves, and then what?”
Chief Denney said the city has one other thing to consider – before councilors decided in late 2014 to not fund a vacant police officer position, the police department had already conducted an extensive search for a new officer and spent $14,000 on background research to compile a list of viable candidates. If La Center does not utilize that list within one year, the search would have to start again and the police department would have spent $14,000 in vain.
Even if the officers at the top of the list are still available, Chief Denney said it would take him at least three months to hire the new officer and get him or her up to speed. In the worst case scenario – if no one on the viable candidates’ list is still available – the chief said it would take six to eight months to hire a new officer.
In the end, the La Center city councilors decided to table the issue, pending further analysis of where they money to pay for an additional police officer might come from, until their next work session, at 5:30 p.m., Wed., May 27. That meeting will be open to the public, but no public comments will be allowed. The work session will take place in council chambers at La Center City Hall, 214 E. 4th St., La Center.
