001we start. It is 6:30. Um, couple things. Uh we are going to have the police chief is going to do a a bit of a presentation for us, a followup uh to our work session, our budget work session se session that we had with him last week. Uh we also have uh board of ed here in case there's any follow-up questions from our budget work session with them last Thursday. Uh we do have our meeting scheduled for tomorrow night to wrap up the budget. Um, so tonight, you know, if we don't end up voting on any particular line item, that's okay. We still have tomorrow night, we're probably going to hear some information tonight that we haven't heard before, so it'll give us at least a day to kind of take that into consideration and
002making some decisions. Um, I believe Rob will probably have some updated numbers for us at some point, but unless anyone objects, I'm going to ask the police chief. Um, he's got his presentation all queued up. If you're ready, we're ready. Oh, did they unplug you over here? They knew you were coming. Yes. It does look like it's the other one turn on. Maybe it's a wiring issue. That'll be Yeah, this all worked. When we did this earlier, the practice round, everything worked fine. So, rehearsals. First, I want to thank you guys for um you know, taking the time. I know you have busy schedules and uh you know, this has kind of been three years uh in the making. So, some of it's going to be a repeat for you. Um, but I really want
003to start with some of the building blocks, uh, so of how we staff our police department, the personnel numbers that we have, the overtime expenditure, um, uh, so we can build up to where, you know, I think you guys may hopefully logically understand why it is I'm asking for, uh, more police officers. U, this is really going to be focusing on um, you know, building up our police strength from 40 officers to hopefully over time 45. Now, that could be a five-year plan, an eight-year plan, a 10-year plan. Um, but you know, I believe Planeville's Police Department has been woefully understaffed for a long, long time. And I just want to get us uh not just ahead of the curve, but I want to bring us up to where we where we really need to
004be. So, you know, the goals uh for increasing our our patrol strength and our overall officer strength is uh to go to 45 eventually add personnel to our patrol staff um which is would go from 21 to 26. Eventually transition to a fourman minimum on uh days and evening shift. Right now there's only three officers on patrol per eight hour shift. eventually uh reduce the amount of forced officer overtime, reduce overall overtime, increase uh police officer proactivity and preventive policing measures. Obviously, with only three people and they're each running around trying to answer calls for service and investigating cases, they really don't have a lot of time to do anything else. Increase officer safety, of course, decrease crime, and increase citizen safety and security. Uh in case you've never seen it, this is a table
005of organization of the police department. Obviously, police chief is up top. Uh below me is the captain. Um the captain runs the patrol division, which is the largest division of the police department. In most police departments, that would be a captain and a lieutenant. Uh we don't have uh we have a very flat organization on top. And so the captain takes care of all the patrol and operation. We have three divisions. the detective division that's run by a detective lieutenant. Right now there are three detectives. There used to be six and since I became chief I started reducing that amount because those bodies were needed on patrol. one uh one core evidence officer and then one officer that uh was assigned from patrol to the detective division div division to work specifically um in the
006very first task force that point's ever been involved with and he's having great success. the operations division, like I said, holds the largest amount of officers, uh, six sergeants and 21 patrol officers, two school resource officers, which are uh, work in the schools full-time, except during the summer months when they come back to dayshift patrol, and then three reserve officers, which are officers that are retired that have kept up their certification and they work road jobs. They don't fill in for anything else. They're not substitutes for us. And then the administrative division, which has a lieutenant and a sergeant. They handle all the administrative work. Uh, and they supervise the majority of our civilian staff, which is in green. So, all told, 40 officers, nine full-time, 10 part-time civilians, and then three sworn reserve officers.
007This is um our administrative personnel. These are officers that are assigned generally to the upstairs, second floor. They are non-p patrol. Their job every day is to come in and do uh administrative work, supervision and management. There's myself, Captain Mullins. Right now, we have an opening uh for Lieutenant Quilter. We had our test yesterday. Uh Sergeant Canoi is administrative sergeant. And then we have the detective division in green. And then the uh two in orange are our school resource officers. So, right off the bat, there are 12 officers out of 40 which are not on patrol. This is our patrol division. our patrol personnel. Uh each shift requires a shift supervisor. There used to be four sergeants. Uh back in 1991, then it went to five and then I made it six. Uh and that
008was uh to not only create better supervision, but to give supervisors a chance to take time off because before whenever they took it off, it would cost overtime. Um so that was part of that plan that we that we put back in place three years ago. And then we have the patrol officers themselves. It looks like there's 23 spots, but um I will tell you that's not correct. Uh everybody that is in red are people that right now cannot work patrol either uh through an injury or because they are in the academy or on field training. Now, this goes up and down. This is a worst, you know, part of this is the probably the worst time for us that we've ever been in in terms of the amount of people that we've had to
009hire that are not fully on their own and able to participate in patrol. Uh, generally though, no matter how many people you have, you can subtract three right off the bat because there's always somebody injured and there's always going to be two people that are in the academy because people are retiring. Uh, it just so happens we hit a really hard period at this point in time. Um, so out of that 23, there's really 21 spots. One of those spots is going to move out of there once we have the promotions because somebody's going to move from sergeant to a lieutenant and then somebody has to be removed from patrol when they get promoted to sergeant. Also, one of those positions uh I was going to probably put back into the detective division. right now
010going from six to three. Uh we're it's kind of a trial run to see how they can keep up the work level that they need to. Um however, if they find that they are falling behind and not able to handle the workload. Um I told them that I will probably put somebody back once we get our shift strengths where we need them to be. So we have uh 21 patrol spots. The officers that are assigned to patrol work one of three eight hour shifts. We have a midnight shift, a day shift, and an evening shift. Each shift has a minimum manpower. There has to be three officers working and one supervisor. There are three officers working patrol 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, as you know. Uh so whereas some agencies that work
011Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday may have four people working, we have to cover, you know, 10 times that amount because we work weekends, holidays, midnight shift, day, evening shift. So anytime we have a loss of even one person, you have to multiply that by four. Patrol officers answer all calls for service. They investigate crimes, enforce motor vehicle laws, patrol neighborhoods, and have many, many ancillary duties uh in running a police department. 2024 we had 20,479 calls for service. Uh 2024 also, we were ranked ninth in the state for the amount of crime per capita uh out of every single town in the uh in the state of Connecticut. So there is a good amount of crime. Uh the officers that are working even though there's only three and half the time somebody's on
012overtime. Uh they are they are they do have a lot of work and a lot of responsibility. Uh and these are not just easy calls. A lot of these uh require complex investigations and obviously because the detective division now has less people. That work has now filtered down to the patrol officer where before they could have done an initial report. It would have taken half an hour you know for for a lararseny at big Y. Now they have to hold up the whole case and now it could take them 8 to 16 hours where they are inside writing reports or trying to investigate crime when they should be out on patrol. Uh the town of Planeville itself is divided into five patrol dis district districts. And so best case scenario, you have five officers working.
013You give them each a separate district. You have district one, you have district two. Uh we've been running with three officers every single day for at least the past year. And so officers have to have multiple districts uh that are assigned to them when they have patrol. Uh in terms of their yearly work schedule, like I said, they work an eight hour shift. They work a 4 day on and two-day off rotation. That is per contract. That equates to 37 and a half hour week or 1,952 hours per year. They work 244 days per year that they're scheduled to work on a clean schedule. So, this would be an indication of what a a 30-day month would look like. The X's are, of course, the officer's work days and the spaces are where they have
014a day off. However, contractually they also get time off. Uh the days off here are pretty much an average. And like I had said before, because there are some so many new officers, they don't get as much time to use. So in the short term, that will help us uh to an to a degree. Uh but as they as the years go on, they will not. They get 15 days average vacation, 13 holidays, 11 uh sick days are what were used, although they they can acrewue more. Uh personal days about one day, a personal day is if they don't get a sick day within 90 days, they don't use a sick day, they get a personal day added uh to their bank. If they use no sick days in an entire year, they get a
015fifth day added. Uh and then compensatory time. compensatory time um was introduced in in the first 24 hours of training overtime. This was a way to reduce the overtime. So when an officer works, they have a choice if they work overtime. Can I am I going to put in for money in my paycheck or am I going to take time and a half off? So if I work an 8 hour shift, I can get 12 hours of pay or I can get 12 hours off. There are some officers that prefer to have the time off and so they build up and build up this comp time. Yes, it saves overtime, uh, but also that creates the fact that an officer is not there. Uh, so on average, it's about 51 days off per officer. This
016time does not even take into account the training days, workers comp, uh, sick time, pregnancy leave, light duty leave or light duty work, or any other ancillary duties that they may be assigned to. So it's more like 71 days off if not more per officer on average. So this is a study I did uh from July 1st of 2023. So this is the fiscal year of 24 just for patrol. And as you can see I sort of totaled up the vacation holiday sick time, personal time, comp time, training time, and workers comp days off. And so this really gives you an indication of just how much time um an officer is not at work. The total is 1472 um days that officers were scheduled to work but took the time off for one reason or
017another whether it was injury, whether it was a vacation time or a holiday. And so the average the average for patrol was 81 days. In other words, the average patrol officer will get 51 days off. So they will work patrol 193 days with training days, workers comp, etc. The average time is more like 81. In the study I just showed you, there were 1472 days in which an officer was scheduled to work and was not there. Uh that absence equates to six full-time officers. So you divide those days by 244 days the officer is scheduled to work and it equals about uh six bodies. This is where I am currently. Currently there's only 16 people available to work patrol. I have to split those 16 patrol officers among three shifts and they have to work
01824/7. So I have five officers assigned to midnights, five to days, and five to evenings. What that looks like for a day shift and um midnight shift. These are five people that are scheduled. Um this would be a 30-day month. And you have those five patrol slots and of course they work a 4242. And no matter which way you move these X's, uh, you're still pretty much equal the same thing. Currently on these shifts, there's a minimum man already, and these are the ones marked in red right off the bat. Meaning anytime anybody takes any day off on those red uh days, is going to create an overtime slot. And so, but and and they do, if they take four days of vacation, it's automatically granted. They take a preference day, it's granted. And so
019this is why we're uh having so much overtime this particular cycle versus other cycles. Historically uh the three officer minimum has been in existence since the 1970s. Uh it has never gone to four and I don't believe it's ever been at two except probably back in the 50s and 60s. In 1991 which is this article is from there were 19 patrol officers uh in 1991. So we've escalated between depending on injuries and where we're at and where the chief decides to put bodies anywhere from 14 to 18 people. And so I'm trying to get ahead of that curve to get, you know, into the mid20s knowing that there's going to be always three people not working and then trying to get to a fourman minimum um so that we can, you know, properly and efficiently
020run the police department. also giving people time off, the ability to investigate cases, the ability to, you know, do their jobs a little bit more uh efficiency. Uh this is the historical overtime. You had seen this before several years ago, but I had added to it. As you can see, 20 thou, you know, it's always been fairly high. Back around 2012, it went up, you know, stratospherically, and in 2023, it went down significantly. That was due to when I was hired in 2022 22, we did a study and I put things in place to reduce the overtime and that was comp time adding a sergeant's position and doing some other modifications to uh the uh the scheduling uh and the way things are done so that we could lower it. Uh and of course because
021of the situation that we're in right now uh we're you know around 552 still lower than you know 600 but it's still probably not where it should be. In in that same year 2023 to 24 the police department overtime was 552 um patrol shift coverage only. So this is just the hours of overtime to cover that minimum manpower. Meaning three people were scheduled, somebody took the day off or two people took the day off or three people took the day off. I have officers on dayshift that are assigned to the SWAT unit. They train twice a month. They both work days. So when they are both gone training, it's automatically two spots right off the bat. Uh there was 4,362 and a half hours which equates uh you know using the average of around $72
022an hour uh $314,000. So it's you know near you know 70 75% of the total overtime is due to trying to cover patrol shifts. This coverage equates to about 84 hours a week. Uh so out of the 21 weekly shifts, that's seven times three. On 10 of those shifts, there's going to be somebody working over. So the scheduling goals, hire five more officers to bring the force to 45. Assign enough officers to patrol shift to transition to a fourh hour or a four officer minimum. Uh which granted may take three years, uh depending on how many people get hired. And then of course going through the academy, how many people are going to retire and so forth. Uh four four officer minimum on day shift and evening shift, eight on midnights. Uh and so it
023would look like eight on mids, nine on days, nine on evenings. This is a nine person schedule. Again, these schedules um once they're set can be moved around so that your bottom line here can be more equate equal. Uh, so generally it could probably be played with so that there's at least six every day. Um, and that would allow at least two people knowing to take the day off and still have that fourman minimum. And that's really what I'm kind of working up to at this point. So the way I see this happening, and I'm not I'm not the money man, but I I think uh it can happen. Uh immediately I'd like to hire one officer uh to move into officer Gret's spot. Uh we do have a spot in July's police academy already.
024We have a good candidate already lined up. It's been through an oral interview and just found out 50 brand new people apply to become police officers in plane. Um probably applied elsewhere as as well, but you know we have a good crop of people and that's an upward that's an upward trend as far as how many applied. Yeah. Yes. I just I know I know there used to be you get hundreds of people applying and then it went it seemed like more way more than than average. Okay. Because I know it had dropped significantly the amount of people you'd actually get to apply. So it sounds like now it's and we're going to and we're going to be looking to see if we can get a second spot set aside for us just in case.
025So uh this I believe is costneutral. Um we are not currently paying a salary. Um I'd also like to get approved this budget cycle for July 1st, 2025 to hire one officer in our budget. That's that would be technically considered our first officer over uh the 40 person um mark. Yeah. Um I would say if we could use residual funds from the current budget cycle that hasn't already been rated. Um but uh that could work. Uh you know maybe half you know budgeting half a person this year, half a person July 1st. Um and then we have some time to think about how to budget the rest. So, in July of 2026, hire one or two officers. This will take us to 43. Uh, I do plan on talking to the board of ed about
026cost sharing the SRO positions. I also have some part-time positions in terms of the crossing guards, which I' I'd like to jud that particular program and use that funds to hire an officer. And then, of course, a year later, trying to hire one or two more. Um, and of course, we have time between now and 2027 uh to to work on that and to plan for that. So that's my quick No, thank you presentation. Thank you. If you have any questions, does anyone have a question? Can you go back to the slide that has Oh, can I just could we just get a copy of that presentation like sent to us after through email? Yes, that would be very nice to have that. And that would be for all of us. Yes. Yeah. Everyone. Yeah.
027Chief, if you send that to me, I can get that to the council. Yeah. All right. Go ahead, Councilman Gman. Sorry to interrupt. I've got one. All right. So, right now, I'm looking at at date of hire. So, it looks like you're probably in a decent position right now. Probably aren't too many retirements coming soon. Yes, we we've looked at that and we feel that, you know, you hear some rumors, but uh I I feel that for two years will sort of be on a steady. Okay. So, as these as these persons in red um come online, I I do believe that we're going to be in a better position incrementally. Um however, you know, historically, no matter how many, we have 19 20 21 with the people that are always going to be out,
028I have to try to plan ahead, right? Um do I do I ever see myself in a position where I show up to work and there's seven guys standing around, you know, saying, "Okay, I only have five districts. there's two extra people. That is not going to happen. I hope it does because then I would take those bodies and I would put a traffic unit back together. I would put a community services officer and I would there's many other things I could do within the police department. Use my brain of the things that I have to do. Uh but right now I'm focused on on patrol. So slot 18 and 19, Delgato and C. Yes. When do they come off of field training? Uh probably about two to three weeks. Two to three weeks. And
029then when do Peterson and Fit Sentin start field training? Peterson graduates the academy uh next week. Okay. And then he has three months of field training. Okay. And then Fit Simmons and Moretta are halfway through the academy right now. They have three more months left before graduation and three months of field training. Yes. So they're six months. Six months. Okay. And then Jake is uh just started. Day one was today. Right. Right. Okay. And you just you mentioned for July training the academy, you have one position and hoping to or hoping to secure two slots potentially if we need it. Yes. Okay. If we can't if we can't get somebody into the uh police academy in Meridan, which is generally where we send people, we will try to go through a satellite academy. Okay. and
030and that's enough time in um you know we really only need a month and a half six weeks to do a background and interviews and everything else. We we get that done fairly quickly here. So Okay. Um you know I can wait for that a little bit. All right, Mr. Chairman. Yes. Go ahead. Chief, when someone goes out on compensation, are they paid through the compensation program or still have salary? And if they if they're paid through compensation, is the salary still there? uh the the town picks up uh workers comp pays 2/3 of it and the town picks up one/3 for the first 6 months and then at that point uh workers comp pays all of it. All of it. And is there anybody out on compensation right now? Can you answer that? Is
031there anybody? Yeah. Yes. One person. And how long has that been? Uh over two years. Two years. Two and a half. I mean, I would suggest to hire a person for that absent person. Well, that's opposite, right? Yes. So, you already stated you were going to hire someone to replace them. Well, I I need the approval. I'd like to. Yes. Unless the council authorizes it. Yeah. Right. But that's my suggestion to hire somebody for that. And that's a new person. That's that's nine months nine months to a year away from getting that person on the road. So, as you know, we're always sort of behind. Procedurally, what does the council is that a formal motion the council would have to take because technically it's already a budgeted position or funded position? I mean, I agree.
032I think it I think it makes sense the workman's comp position. I think we should, you know, if we could tonight, I'd be okay saying yes, go start. Well, yeah. I But I don't know. procedurally. I think we want an internal uh I'd need an internal couple of meetings to, you know, again, this person has rights to that position. Yep. Um but I, you know, again, it won't take that much time to just make sure that we're clear in the clear. Yeah. To proceed uh in that avenue if that's the way that the not replacing we're right. Right. The ability to hire 41. Yes. Yes, such time as that situation fixes itself and then we'll we'll obviously probably go back down to 40 unless another person new person's authorized for July 1st. All right. Because,
033you know, if everyone's okay, I mean, then why don't we I'm comfortable saying, you know, can we move towards getting that taken care of? Yes. Whatever we have to do, right? Do we need a motion to push it forward or or wait a couple meetings? Sounds like not yet. We at some point there will be something that we need to do but I should manager needs a little time. Yeah. I just need just I just want to be clear I can advise the council should something go other than expected that this you know I don't want you to be forced in a position where this person comes back and you say oh you can tell it's that. Yep. No I understand. All right. Not that I think it's going to happen. Right. Right. Just yeah,
034we want to make sure we have our basis as to if we go going in this path that we're we're we're certain. Yep. And just the fact that the microphone's acting like a a fire in a fireplace like is there anything we should be concerned and I don't mean to put the town clerk on the spot, but do you smell any smoke? I hear crackling. Yeah, I hear crackling over on this side. I just want to make sure we're not in danger because that would be I don't know. They didn't do this last night. No, I know. Maybe that's why they were off to start. I don't know. Well, we have four police officers here. They can clear a path for us as we run out of the building. Um, Mr. Chair. Yes. Go ahead.
035So, you brought up something I hadn't even thought of is the salary for the officer that's on workers comp has already been budgeted. So if we did half year this year and then half next year, does that work? Does that number work? Replace replace the officer on comp and then add another this year. Does that work? Does that make When when you say this year, you mean current year 25 as in right now, April, right? Whatever we are, wherever. Yeah. Yeah. I mean the the number, you know, the magic number of 40 is just budgetarily up to you. You approve, you know, a $5 million budget or a $6 million budget that that we can just fill the that dollar difference with the number of bodies. So if you give, you know, town manager the
036ability and approval to hire an officer currently budgetarily will make it work. I mean, you know, we're nine months into the year. um the the the salary for that one individual who hasn't received a penny of that salary this year thus far theoretically is still sitting there, but by the end of the year, there's other line items within the budget that may be over that we eat into that salary amount that's not drawn down upon or we go over and overtime that I then take from full-time to cover or come to you and say we need an additional appropriation. I can do it any number of ways. I you know it's it's truly budgetarily that's that's really all I can say and you know go go through the time manager to let him know what
037you want to do and we'll make it work you know by the end of the year we'll know what line items need what where how and when and then they come to you and say this is what we need to do excuse me this is what we need to do all right anyone else with any questions or comments That's what I would propose is another officer for uh for June for the new budget and to replace the uh officers that's on compensation for now whether we do that right now in this budget or do it in the in the June budget. But I think it needs to be done and I'm talking on behalf of the people of Planeville for their safety. When I look at these figures and look at all the time that
038each officer has off and how many hours they're working, to me, you don't even have five officers every shift. You're you're pulling from other shifts, which makes them tired. If an officer goes out for eight hours and then goes out for eight hours or another shift in the same day, he's putting himself at risk and the people at Plain at risk, I think, because he's a tired officer on shift. Am I right, Chief? you have a guy pull two shifts make up for somebody that's not there. Yeah, I would say, you know, if I read I you know, I read the numbers and they're not always exact, but a good 60%. I would say at least uh you know 60% of the time or maybe half the time the officer is that's working the old
039time is forced in. meaning they're already working a shift and say they're working day shift and an evening shift officer books off or is booked off and nobody wants the overtime. They also working days and then have to work a 16 hour day. And so that's what we call an order in or an order over or held. These are interchangeable terms. Uh so the the majority of those that overtime is people are working 16our shifts. So what would you say the reaction time is of an officer working that many hours? Uh it depends on how much coffee they have. I suppose uh or how quiet it is, but it it's definitely it's an offic safety issue as well because you have three officers. One officer is inside the building. There's only two cover the entire
040town. And so the officer's proactivity to say, "I'm going to go out and find something, but my backup isn't going to be here." You know, those are some of the issues that you run into. Somebody's a busy town. This is not uh Yeah, we're busy. Some of these officers are working extra hours uh on road shift construction sites. Yeah, that is that as well. A couple uh the the Connecticut Commons. Are we still spending a lot of time up there? Yes. All right. Cuz I and I I I at some point back in 1999, I think there was a thought that they could that they were going to actually hire like a security person. Not sure what that would have helped or not helped with. Security. I believe they have uh some civilian that I
041was just curious that was but I knew Yeah, I knew that there's been indication that the town spent a lot of time up there. Yeah, we had we had set up some of our some of our uh license plate readers we had set up in those particular areas because of how busy that area is and because of the amount of crime and uh we're always, you know, we're never right there when something happens. And so, uh, that kind of helps us, uh, with with solving some of those crimes. But, yeah, we're we're up there a lot. I mean to the to the point where I was going to find out who owns all those properties and see if they could, you know, do something about helping us because providing some additional providing so much service
042to them that it it takes away from the rest of the town and just and I know um responding to medical calls has come up. Um and we we typically send two officers to a scene when there's a medical call. That's correct. It depends, but Okay. generally one, but and it doesn't sound like that's something a lot of towns do, or at least I tried to do some research on my own. I didn't find too much out there. There's very few towns now that would consider themselves first responder towns. They're generally the smaller towns where the officers that are police officers are going to every single pinnacle call and are keeping themselves certified as emergency medical responders and are carrying all the equipment that they need in the cars. So that would be uh AED,
043Narcan, oxygen, quick clot, and then an entire medical bag uh full of full of items uh to help people in need. So we we go to every single medical call that comes in and that's been going on for a long time as far as you know. Yes. I mean I feel bad I don't know the answer. I probably should know the answer to that. They used to have the officers here used to actually drive an ambulance and they would they would take people to the hospital in the police department ambulance. Okay. That's new to me. I did not know that. Right. Because I I you know as I'm thinking like I you know clearly there are some you know the fact that we've gone from you know 19 patrol officers in 1991 to the number
044we have today over a 35 year period. It does and what you're dealing with now is probably much more than what you were dealing with as a as a police department back 35 years ago. you know, but there's also some of these little things and not I don't mean little like they're not important little, but you know, you know, having the discussion about the SRO SRO officers and, you know, these medical calls, being the first responder to medical calls and um you know, the Connecticut Commons like it sounds like, you know, I'm comfortable adding more staff and and in the proposed budget, I'm comfortable adding more police officer positions so that we can start, you know, trying to get you to where you think we need to be. But I also, you know, and I
045don't know, you know, I don't know where you guys administratively, is there a way to kind of have us write out a plan? And you did have a slide that identified, but is there anything more we would need to kind of tie all these things like the you know being the first responders like is there someone that can kind of and maybe it's you but someone that tells us like here's maybe a better way to handle who your first responder and I don't know if that means we have to get an ambulance for the town. So I'm very good at uh value engineering I guess you'd call it. Okay. And so that would that would be looking at operations and the daily workflow of what people do inside the building, which is tremendous. I haven't
046even touched upon the different varying things that we have to do on a daily basis. But when I was there, it was clear to me that there were not enough people on patrol. I think I counted 14 when I first started here. There were two people on workers comp. There was a a a different type of a schedule that they were working. Uh, and I wanted to bring it back down to something a little bit more traditional and add people. And so there was a support services sergeant. That was Sergeant Marque. He was working upstairs. He was in charge of the traffic unit. He was in charge of doing some training within the school system. And I took that sergeant position away and I put that sergeant back on patrol to to go to six
047patrol sergeants so that we could save uh overtime uh and have more better supervision. There was also a traffic officer and his only job was to do traffic. He also handled a lot of those uh town events such as the balloon fest or setting up cones for the Memorial Day parade. There was a enough work for that person to do full-time. I took that position away and I put that person back on patrol role. I also took three detectives. Every time a detective, one detective took him back, put him on patrol. One retired Simidan. I hired a patrol officer. I never replaced his position in the detective division. Officer Humpley, when he retired, somebody within the detective division took his spot as the core officer, but now that person can't be a full-time detective. I
048never replaced that person. I kept a a body on patrol. Uh and then the varing things we did, we used to do fingerprints. And so people would walk in at any time of the day or night and say, "I want to be fingerprinted." They would take an officer off the road and they would fingerprint that person. Sometimes it would take an hour. And so I subcontracted that particular function out to a company and that people now come in once a week and they have their fingerprints done. So things things like that where it's I'm I'm trying to reduce some of the things that they were doing. U but some of the things are are are value to the community like unlocking motor vehicles. Yep. Right. We have to get equipment. We have to get training.
049We have to find the equipment. We have to go out there and it takes time. we're doing like 200 a year and I could very well easily save hundreds of hours by saying we're not doing it anymore. But you're going to have the public say, "Well, okay, now we don't have this service anymore." So, there's only so much cutting and and carving that you can do um before like we're on the the razor's edge. Yeah. And all I can tell you is that when you know two people a day are on overtime uh and there's there's that much overtime that's it's an indication besides anything else it's telling you you do not have enough personnel assigned. Y All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. Go ahead. Um Chief, so um I I'm in favor of
050adding whatever staff you need. Um, I really like it when you get officers that are experienced because it saves all that time. Yes. And they can start right away. Um, I just I get concerned with the comp with um I've worked in insurance for almost 40 years. So, I think re releasing someone that's been on comp for a while um when they've been injured on the job uh is kind of like a slippery slope slope that we get into. So, I have concerns about that, you know. Yeah. I'm we're not releasing that person. Okay. Um I've I've my only job was to try to get a resolution for that person, right? And so, all I need is somebody to reach across the aisle and say, "Hey, let's talk because how long could it go on?
051It's not fair to him. It's not fair to us." And uh so I I just want it resolved. I one way or the other. And I think it this isn't the first time that this has happened within the police department where somebody's been at workers comp for a while and the town has to decide how to come up with a plan to to make right by that person but to separate their service. Right. And so I think it can be done in a tactful manner and in a respectful manner. Okay. Thank you. All right. Anyone else, Mr. Chair? Go ahead. I I think I I'd go a step further than Councilman Underwood. Replace the officer or hire someone to fill the position that's out on workers comp and then add two more officers this July.
052Um I think that gets us closer to where we need to be and especially since it doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of retirements, we can get where it needs to be a lot faster. Okay. Yeah, Mr. Chair, thank you for coming tonight. This presentation was very helpful for me. Um, I was surprised when you came last week and read your letter and kind of explain to us how behind the police department is and how much more help you need. So, I almost feel like I'm in favor of replacing um the workman comp officer. I would be in favor of hiring two. I want to see the numbers, you know, but at least one. But I do think going forward we should throughout the year um maybe start planning of how to
053um get more officers down the road. I know for me maybe um even like quarterly this chart and the one before it maybe seeing the updates see what's changing just so if I'm here next year for budget season you know like just seeing how you guys are are doing and not feeling cuz last week when you came and you were like we need more and I'm like oh my god like we're on a time crunch you know we have meetings every night and you know I don't want to feel stressed trying to make a decision because safety is very important in this town. It's to me it's one of the most important things. I know if I have a problem, I hope I can call and someone shows up. So, um but this was very
054helpful cuz I don't think I ever really fully understood how the layout was or the organization of it was. So, I would like throughout the year to just have updates maybe quarterly just to see so we're more prepared when we come to budget time. But I'm definitely in favor of your plan. And I think you made very clear points and I totally support it and I hope we can get there. I think it will take some time and creative planning, but I think we can do it. So, thank you. No, thank you. And of course, I'll, you know, anything, you know, if we get, uh, extra personnel and and, you know, it starts to turn around and we get to that point, uh, I'm always going to reassess and I and I'll be honest, I'm
055always I'm used to working, uh, doing doing more with less. And I and I'm never a person that's going to ask for pie in the sky. So, if we get to a point where, you know, three officers are working and the overtime is is is manageable and it's not something that's that's worrisome and that the officers are satisfied and the job is getting done correctly, then I'll be more than, you know, open and and transparent to say, "Hey, we're we're good for where we're at now." Um, and that's how I've always been. I've always been able to to trade things back and forth, whether it's cars or anything else. So, thank you, Mr. chairman. Okay, go ahead. I kind of uh come to my own feeling on this and it's very much like uh Mr.
056Getterman has expressed where we replace the one officer that that's right now and then as July 1st two more. Uh, I think it it just sounds more adequate to me at this time. It sounds like it it would be a a better move to to just do it and get it over with. I I don't see where playing games with one month and two months and three months, six months, whatever is is important. I think the important part is is let's get them hired. Let's get them working and get them out there and get them doing the job. Just that simple. Mr. Chairman, well, let me um let me just let me go to Councilwoman Moranti. She was she wants to say something first. Okay. Uh you know, I certainly um uh two-part comment. I
057certainly am in favor of trying to resolve the workers comp position and that would give us uh net gain from where we really are now. Maybe not where we are on paper but from where we really are now. But I also support adding to the police force. This is a very informative presentation and um very clearly presented in terms of what the impact is on a a day-to-day uh nightight basis. So I'm certainly in favor of adding the two positions. Okay. Uh Councilman Underwood. Yeah. I just want to remind the council that the increase for the police department's budget, correct me if I'm wrong, was 1.6%. Correct. It was the second lowest. Um the fire department was the lowest at 0.06. And um when the chief came before us, we were really shocked to see
058how low he's trying to keep the budget. But at the same time, I think we're all realist here. We realize that the uh the town is at risk. I mean, let's be honest about it. when we don't have enough police officers out there or they're working double shifts, working 16 hours and eight hours going out for another shift and then being asked the next day to come in again at 16 hours. Um, so I am in support of changing a few of the uh figures around here if we can. So why don't I summarize? I'll give the finance director some homework because he doesn't have enough, right? Um could you for tomorrow night provide us how the police budget would change and it sounds like if we just look to to fill or not replace
059that's the wrong word but the workman's cop if we hired someone because we have someone on workman's comp sounds like that's pretty much a neutral budget scenario but what would change if we added one full-time position starting July 1 and what would the budget change if we added two full-time time positions. Okay. Well, I can give it to you now if you want. Great. Well, I like the You want time to think about it? Excel spreadsheets you provide. I really But no, yes, you want to go I and I see I think I I told you too long. I thought ahead. I never knew what you were going to ask. This is what happens when you're in night five of the budget work season. So literally we take their number right now and I could
060just add 111,000 for one full time and multiply it by two and that's what their bottom line budget would be. Well, I I mean when you're talking about the police budget, you know, you're not you're not looking at you got to from the spreadsheet I gave you, you got to get rid of the fringe, okay? Because that comes out of our employee benefits and and other, you know, insurance line items within other departments in the budget. Okay? So you're really looking at a uh full-time salary budgetary line item increase in the police budget. Okay. So to fill the the the body that is currently on workers comp in this fiscal year right now I mean we'll if you want to do that and give the town manager approval to do it that's we'll deal with
061the cost at the end of the year when I come to you fourth quarter transfers if we need anything maybe maybe not who knows we'll deal with that hiring two officers effective July 1st full for the full year I would recommend adding 160,000 in salary, which is essentially an average of the three different levels of potential hires. Okay. We don't know if we're going to get a a new person, three years, five years, someone already certified. Right. Exactly. Certified or not. Then I would add $3,000 on top of that for for uniforms. you know, the outfitting and everything else will make up in the other line items within the police department budget that again at the end of the year next year, assuming, you know, we actually do hire these folks. Um, you know, we
062could adjust the budget accordingly uh during the year or at the end of the year if we had to deal with work quarter transfers and changes throughout the year. But to answer your question, I would add 163,000 to the full-time line item salary if that's the way you want it to go with two officers for the full 12 months. And what that would do I can't I can't see. Hang on. So what that would do for the budget as presented it would it would increase the budget to 5 million 5,763,000 which would be an increase of $255,700 or 4.64. Okay. you wanted to do one obviously be a little less than I'd be half of the 63. I mean it's you know but I think that would be in my estimation as you know the
063numbers guy according to chief um that I think that's an average of all three potential higher types covers the the uh uniforms that well the stipen we have to pay the officers rather for uniforms um you know outfitting and potential academy costs you know we'd eat up in the budget and uh you know move money around at some point during the year after we see how this would were to play out. I wouldn't suggest increasing any other line items at this point. Okay. But that's just me. All right. So, everybody, are we still on the same page? Like everyone's okay with um because what I would do is, you know, if we can get a copy of the presentation just emailed to us overnight. Um that's great. You know, I would like to take care
064of this particular department tomorrow night. Um you know, whatever we decide to do. I mean, clearly we have some momentum, I think, uh, to do something and we'll we can certainly finalize that tomorrow night. Um, so I don't know if there's anything, Chief, if you have anything to add or town manager or anybody have any questions up here or comments. Mr. Chair, real quick, do you see adding two officers this year? the say if we add two on July one does that make any impact at all in this budget's overtime no because the the next the next academy class itself is uh when July July early July right so even if we had somebody you know sort of lined up by the time we even got them hired it it would probably be the last
065week and a half of the of the budget cycle right and so then you know July 1 rolls around and that person and whoever else would go to the academy and then you know we would have to wait. So that's the other thing is get the approval now we might not be able to hire anybody till November or December of 2025 because it it takes time to find people and everything else. So even though we got the approval we might not be able to hire somebody and get an academy seat until farther on towards the end of the year. And that of course would would help a little bit in terms of you know save that money. The money is still there, but right at the end of the year, it would so it would
066be next year's overtime budget, fiscal year 27 that would be affected by the hires now. Pro well, it depends. If they're brand new, it takes them a year to even start working overtime. So yeah, we probably wouldn't see uh some of the relief uh until, you know, we'll see some relief now because those people are getting off FTO and we'll see, you know, I'll keep an eye on that and we'll see how that helps us out. But the new people, if we got approved for July 1st of 2025, we really wouldn't see anything until the next probably the next budget year. Okay. As far as numbers come in. Thank you. All right. Any other comments? Any other questions? Yeah, Mr. Chairman, I have a me uh question for Ben Gman. Yeah. Are you talking two
067new officers or one officer and replacing the one on uh replace the or fill in the the workers composition? That's what I thought. And then add two. Thank you. All right. All right. And just um you know, overtime. I know we lowered overtime. I think I might have asked this last week, but um I can't remember. I know we dropped it by 50,000. Is there a potential savings? And I know it's not one for one, but the fact that we do have two coming out of field training. Um, you know, is there a hope that we're going to start see maybe that little bit of benefit to the overtime? Yes, because of those those two coming off FTO plus in the summertime when the SRO's come to dayshift, you'll start seeing uh that reap some
068benefits in that regard as well. And I just, you know, this current year, it looks like we're doing okay as far as overtime. I don't I think the page in our book is as of December 31st. So I don't know the last couple months what's added on to that. But you know literally I think we spent 50% of our overtime as of December 31st which is halfway through the fiscal year. But the fact that the summer months of July and August would I would imagine summer is when you see a a a spike in overtime. Yes. Is is it incorrect to to theorize that, you know, we won't spend quite as much in June for o for overtime based on vacations that most vacations were July and August? I don't know if I'm asking this
069right, but it it it could be. I mean, I I'd have Yeah, I don't know if any kind of analysis has ever been done, but I was just Well, June because June June, some people go on vacation in June. The SRO aren't out of the school until anyway. So they really don't have an impact until July and August because they themselves go away on vacation. So you know, but the other two guys will be off FTO. So there there will be some relief. Our numbers right now are good. I think we're at 72% of our overtime at this this point. I checked today. I was just, you know, I was trying to not trying to be optimistic, but it it seemed like, you know, getting through July and August already being in the numbers that,
070you know, potentially we are going to have a more favorable year, then it looks like the last, you know, especially last year and a half have been a little bit more difficult. Um, okay. Okay. Just to look at the numbers, um, uh, in the proposed budget, the department request for overtime was 450,000. and the manager request was 480,000. So would those numbers uh I think we're going to be a for for next year for next year why 26 I I think we have a good chance of being there u because the people are coming off field training getting out of the academy you know that's still months away but I I I think we have a good chance to be that low but again we we'd I'd have to keep an eye on it. Yeah.
071Okay. So, Mr. Chairman, really quickly, just as a comment to your question earlier, according to the financial dashboard, which we reported out yesterday at the council meeting, I would think I would know that number. No, that's all right. We talked about it 24 hours. There were a lot of numbers, though, so that's fair enough. Um, total spent through the end of February was $373,470, which to the chief's point is 72%. Okay. Of the overtime budget. Okay. Yeah. 500,000 was budgeted this year. Yeah. Well, that three that 373 includes dispatch if you take just the police there at 330. So that's why there's a lot of numbers. It's it's a little uh clouded sometimes. So the police budget through December Wow. through February 28th was 66%. Spent. But to the chief's point again, 3 weeks later,
072we are now we're probably at 72%. Okay. So we're right on target with all of that. All right. All right. Anything else? So, I guess the plan, thank you again. Obviously, this was uh you know, I think it was valuable time spent. Sorry to keep the board waiting, but um I think this definitely helped and is helped us get a sense of the direction we want to go. Uh tomorrow night, we'll we'll actually take a vote on the bottom line budget, figure out what direction we want to go. And with that, I will say thank you. And you know, if anyone has any questions, obviously feel free to reach out. I don't know if we reach out through the town manager to the chief or go to the chief directly, but um any follow-up questions,
073feel free to reach out and we'll get them answered. Chief, just a reminder, if you can give us a copy of that, we would very much appreciate it. Yeah, I don't I don't know if I have all of your emails. I can go back to the police department, email it to you. If you could send it to me and then I will make sure they get it tonight. Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Chief. Thank you guys for your time. Thank you. Um the only does anyone need a quick break? So otherwise good night you guys. Thank you. Um now I was going to suggest the superintendent if you probably don't need to come up to the podium yet. We'll see if anyone has any questions or any follow-ups from last uh Thursday's work session.
074Is there any new information you want to share with the council at all? Nothing new. Just uh you know, Mr. Chairman. Yes. I have I have a question for the superintendent. So, if you could Sure. Yeah. I'd appreciate it. I'm sorry. I sent you an email and then I was too busy on vacation to do that. So, no worries at all. Too much sun, right? Yeah. And he turns on the middle microphone there. Okay. It's on. Already on. It's already on. Good. Okay. Look at that. Okay. So, I had two questions. One was regarding the uh two math professionals that you're hiring. Yes. And you called them instructional instructional what was the title that you instructional resource. Okay. So, are they going to be teaching classes or are they going to be tutors? So they
075are um they'll be teaching students who are struggling with math and going into classrooms where there's students who need more support in math and and facil helping those students as well. Okay. So um it's not unusual. So in in language arts we have the same kind of thing but a number more um because reading is so important. Um, however, we're finding that we're struggling with our math um instruction at the elementary level. And part of that we believe is that um needing some more support to do um to really help students along. So, is it like a lab situation where they they could do like math labs where they have maybe five students in there and they work on specific things or or is it a one-on-one? So, it it usually it's small groups um
076or it's in the classroom. Okay. All right. Yeah. All right. Um, thank you. Uh, the other question I had was regarding how you spoke about um the attrition when you had teach uh teachers leaving, but you weren't adding their salaries back into the budget because they can now go anywhere in the state and work. I didn't it was a little opaque to me. So, if you could just clarify what you mean by that. So, in in past times, other than key high school positions like science and math, um, and sometimes psychologists, things like that, um, typically we would assume we could pull somebody in at a step three. Um, so in the 55, $60,000 range um, when we replace somebody. So there was a if we were lo losing somebody at 85,000 and we were
077bringing them in at 55, we saw a nice $30,000 drop right in in the salary line. Um these days uh because there's so much mobility um opportunity for any line any area of our instructional core um that's really just not there anymore. So, we're seeing um folks potentially leave um at 65,000 and we're hiring at 65,000. So, we just don't garner as much savings when we see retirements. That's really I see. Okay. All right. Thank you. Sure. All right. And um just a quick and I'm not sure who feels this question, but I know with insurance the rates the board was much closer to what actually we're going to have to pay next year. Correct. Is there any adjustment that needs to be made on their end? No, I would recommend not touching that line
078item at all. They're right pretty much right on target. We we adjusted the town site down because we budgeted at the highest possible level. Yep. In a worst case scenario situation, board pretty much hit it right on with where it ended up coming in. So, uh, it was a good thing. So, I recommend no change at all. Okay. Just want to clarify that. Um, any other comments or questions for the superintendent? Um, again, our plan would be tomorrow night to wrap up the budget. We'll vote on your line item tomorrow night. Um, anybody with anything else for superintendent? Otherwise, you're free to go home. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Oh, go ahead. Just one more quick one in regards to tutors and things like that. Sure. Um uh I always thought that the the tutors like
079we we have their salaries within um the salaries that are listed in your budget, but I had been told by some parents that um some parents that required tutoring for their children were being charged to pay for the tutor's annual or hourly fee. Do they do you have some kind of hybrid situation like that where So we do not as a school district have any uh parents paying us um to provide tutoring services. Okay. Um you know that makes me wonder if there are whether they're working for us or not. People working as private tutors in the in the community. That would not surprise me. Um but it nothing like that happens through us. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Very good. Everyone's all set. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for
080being patient and letting us get through the police uh discussion first. It was informative and and thank you for approving the um construction manager at risk uh firm. That was a nice box to check off. Yes. Nice to have that. Keep moving it forward. Right. Have a good night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, at this point, I think unless someone has another department they want to talk about, I was going to wrap up with those two departments tonight. Um, obviously we have several motions to make tomorrow night. Uh, capitals one off the top of my head, but I'm sure staff will be good at you have four departments to uh, approve. one being board of ed, two being police, three being unclassified, and four being the transfers capital out and this, you know,
081the CIP program in uh total. Okay. And so that's tomorrow night. We will take action on those four and wrap up, get a bottom line number, and we'll finish up the budget tomorrow night hopefully. And u Mr. Chairman, I may have come late and and uh but uh I I think we want to start with a revised number where Rob is in terms of Before we go, I was going to ask vehicle so you all have Yes. little uh additional information uh going into tomorrow night, which is good news uh because the numbers come down and I just want um Rob to give us that. Well, I'll give you a I'll give you a couple things. one um with the change in a motor vehicle grand list. Obviously that changes our our mill rate gives
082us more revenue. I was able if you recall in our revenue um we looked at the revenues I I had lowered the motor vehicle supplement. Yeah. Okay. Adding that back to level essentially because the grand list is the same for motor vehicles with this change. I was able to add that back into the the equation. The grand list did go up because of the change and with the expenditure numbers as you have in front of you now before or if any police changes are made that includes CIP as is debt board of ed everything unclassified the mill rate increase estimated at this time uh would be 1.44 1.44 44 mills it would be uh 34.49 34.19 but again that's estimated at this point in time as revenues are not completely finalized the grand list too
083as I said last night we still have to dot the cross the tees it will not vary much from the num that number we're looking at now but it will change a little bit and that'll be done before the April 15th deadline with the state of Connecticut well before you're uh setting a mill rate towards the end of May. Okay. Um with any change with the change to police again assuming everything else being equal that you may do tomorrow that 1.44 would go to 1.55. Okay. With two officers correct at adding adding the 163 to the police budget. You get the 1.55 from 1.44. And you take No, go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. you took into account the insurance change on the town side. Oh yeah, that that was that was done already when we
084approved. Yeah. Oh yeah, that was a reduction of 51,700. So again, that's all the numbers you have presently all the budgets you've presently adopted and the and the budgets that you have not adopted but are presented to you in those dollar amounts. 1.44 with a potential change to police to be 1.55. Okay, great. Thank you. And Rob, you keep saying two police officers. I'm sorry. You keep saying two police officers. Is that replacing the person on compensation with a policeman? That's two two additional budgeted positions July 1st. That's going from 40 to 42, right? So the body in 25 could be higher and then two additional on top of that. Let me ask you, if we did um just replace the guidance on compensation, the salaries already in the budget and adding one police officer,
085what would the increase be? Half of that be about 1.5. 1.50 mills. Yeah. Plus or minus. But you necessarily can't take that out if you don't know if he's coming back. You can because you won't hire, you won't rehire going down the road when the next opening comes about. Yeah. I mean, it's a nice split adding 163 if you're only going to do one July 1st and take that in half and make it 81 and change and the.11 increase would be, you know, five, you know, five. So you'd be able 1.5 mills instead of 1.55. All right. And I quick quick question. So we had a slide which showed the change in mill rate and it is a change in the mill rate in the percent. Is there a way to get what the average
086taxpayer paid residential? See, by your reaction, I think that's a yes. I I'm going to finish. I'm not even going to continue. We break down every vehicle, too. No. Oh, 2014 GMC Sierra. Yeah. Yeah. But no, like cuz you cuz I know we went through a reval and that was the reason, you know, that was a reason we were able to drop the mill rate. However, there was a shift towards residential, I believe, on the reval. And just to compare apples to apples, I I I thought like somewhere you guys just know like what the average assessment was for a residential property in town. Yeah, we we can do that because we do have averages based on house type. You know, the the two, you know, single family, x number of square feet, two family,
087three family. We we've done that before and it was easier with, you know, one mil rate. Correct. So, you know, Reval back when we did it a few years ago, yes, it did shift a little bit to real estate and that was the market at that time. Our um because of Reval, our mill rate was below the state tax of Yes. car, motor vehicle rather, but it was also higher then. Then the state lowered the motor vehicle cap, which we then went above uh shortly thereafter. So when that shift that shift alone the state changing the cap on the mill rate it shifted to residential in real estate. So it was kind of a twofold shift. Yep. Yeah. There was and in keeping motor vehicle flat now the only place you can go is to
088real estate. Yeah. Um but yeah we could do that sort of same sort well that sort of we can do that type of analysis based on a flat dollar amount assessed value house. Yeah. like a single family house. Yeah. Right. You know what? 150 200 300,000 whatever assessed value we can do. We can do that is what to what the change would be. Yes. And even if you want to give me what that assessed value was, I'll do the math. I don't mind doing that, but I don't want to I I just I don't know if you guys have a chart that says, you know, in fiscal year 2020, the average single household was assessed at, you know, 80. I'd have to dig those up. I mean again um you know reval kind of skews
089those those charts a little bit um and you know only doing revaluation every 5 years obviously your property is valued at the same level for those five years until it's revalued. Yes. So, um, but yeah, I mean, I we can certainly run some numbers. I can, uh, do the same sort of, um, numerical comparison, if you will, to the October 1st 23 grand list, which is this current fiscal year 25's tax bills to what is proposed October 24 grand list to the next year 26 budget. I could do something like that. And rebell is next year, two years from now. So October October 20 October 126 which I believe is fiscal year 28. Okay. Remember the grand year is two years behind. That's that's why I started I got stuck in some Yeah. I didn't
090know exactly which you know assessment year meant this fiscal year and I I did struggle with that. Right. So this this budget we're looking at fiscal year 26 is grand this year 24. Okay. All right. Mr. Chairman. Yes. Rob. What the terms of bill? How many dollars? Um, as well as presented right now at the grand list for 24 October 1st 24 would be 1,738,000 rounded. Is that for 1.44 or just a mill? That's a mill. That's what a mill is worth. All right. Any other questions or comments? because you know we're I'm all set. If anyone cares to make a motion to adjourn and we'll reconvene at 6:30 tomorrow night. So moved. Second. All those in favor? I. All right, we're adjourned and we'll see everybody in 23 hours.