Sunday, February 24, 2008

DeKalb County - Police Staffing & Raises, up for a vote on Tuesday, 1% millage increase?


As a friend of the DeKalb Police Department, I fully support the officers who serve and I agree with Chief Bolton that vast improvements need to be made on the current staffing levels of the Department, especially at the uniform level. At this upcoming Tuesday’s Board of Commissioners Meeting, I am told that the County will be presenting two Police items up for approval. Supposedly, a 4% pay raise per year for three years (in addition to the annual merit increases), as well as an additional 125 officers per year for the next four years. In order to pay for these expenditures, I am told that a 1% millage increase will also be proposed to fund these items.

The other items in Chief Bolton’s "Road to Success Action Plan", such as tasers, video cameras, and take home cars, are still on the Chief's agenda; but officer pay & increased staffing are the top priorities.

On February 12th, Chief Bolton and his management team spoke to the Dunwoody North Community and faced some tough questions on increased crime & slow response times. The Chief answered the best he could and he introduced the new Interactive Community Police officers now dedicated to the area. The Chief is not a politician; he only tells the CEO & the BOC what he needs to do the job and the rest is up to them. Hopefully before any tax increase is levied, I would hope that the County has done everything within their power to streamline the process so that more officers have the time and resources available to patrol & answer 911 calls.

For example, the City of Atlanta just requested that the Georgia State Police cover the interstates for accidents and the Georgia Department of Public Safety was happy to step in to fill the roll. Wouldn’t this same agreement for DeKalb County save 1,000’s of work hours which could be used to fight crime? If the GSP isn’t available, maybe the City of Doraville could assist since they have a proven record of enforcing the speed limits on the interstates they patrol? Have you ever seen Cobb County work I-75; why can’t DeKalb work I-285 the same way? If funding is the problem, maybe it’s inadequate revenue collection that needs to be rectified? According to an AJC editorial, the DeKalb Recorders Court seems to turn away money from people who want to pay for their speeding tickets but can’t due to an antiquated computer system and an understaffed court system.

For the sake of the officers on the street, I hope that they get both the additional officers as well as the increase in pay; my only question is whether or not the department could have squeezed a little more efficiency out of the operations to fund the increased expenses.

1 comment:

Open+Transparent said...

Great idea, we should have the GA State Patrol be responsible for the state highways that go through the DK.

My problem with DCPD is not the officers on patrol or detectives. It is all of the officers that have positions that should be filled by civilians. Remember former cheif Lou Graham? He had two glorified admin. assistants follow him around 24/7, except thaere were ranking officers. DCPD has well over 1000 employees...too many of them are not out on patrol as they should be. Tere is administrative bloat.

Code Enforcement should be moved to the Fire Dept., as other local gov't's across the country are doing so. So much of Code Enforcement is related to fire code. Let's have DCPD concentrate on criminal activity. Code Enforcement to the Fire Dept. relieves a major burden and allows them to focus on their mission.