With recent budget cuts that could affect police service in
Morgan Hill for years to come, Chief David Swing is seeking public
input to develop a crime-fighting strategy that focuses on broad,
long-term outcomes rather than short-term results such as arrest
numbers or crime statistics.
With recent budget cuts that could affect police service in Morgan Hill for years to come, Chief David Swing is seeking public input to develop a crime-fighting strategy that focuses on broad, long-term outcomes rather than short-term results such as arrest numbers or crime statistics.
It’s the long-term part of a multi-faceted effort to deal with reductions in the number of sworn officers and support staff, and to ideally continue providing the same services with fewer resources, Swing said.
“We are in a state of transition,” said the chief. “We’re stepping back, taking stock of where we are in a longer-term direction.”
The city council directed the department, led by former Chief Bruce Cumming at the time, to begin developing the “outcome based” strategy last year. Since then, the city created and filled a new crime analyst position in the MHPD, which Swing identified as a key component of identifying and tracking outcomes.
On Thursday, police will conduct two public workshops to invite residents to share what kind of outcomes they would like to see in Morgan Hill. The workshops will take place at the Community and Cultural Center.
Swing hopes to produce “three to five outcomes” around which to center a strategy to fight and prevent crime, improve traffic safety and keep the community safe. The strategy will include both broad-based long-term objectives, as well as day-to-day measurement efforts the department will enact in order to reach those goals.
“I think every organization needs to have some long-term goals and objectives,” Swing said. “Without that our effectiveness can be diminished. The purpose of the workshops is to invite the community to help us chart a course for what we want to focus on for public safety. With the (budget restraints) the last couple of years, we have needed to increase our staffing, and that is one of my goals. I think that until we can increase our staffing, we need to better engage the community to have a more efficient and more effective plan in Morgan Hill.”
Such an outcome-based model acknowledges the fact that the police department’s core mission – safety of the community – can be a subjective observation, determined by individual residents’ experiences, Swing explained. Simply reducing the crime rate, for example, does not always measure preferred outcomes – one of which might be “reducing the fear of crime.”
“If the numbers show the crime rate is low, and people are afraid to go to a certain part of town, it doesn’t matter how low the crime rate is. What matters to me is if most people feel safe in their community. If people are afraid to go out and walk around in their neighborhood, we need to work on that,” Swing said.
One Morgan Hill resident who has been following the city’s efforts to cope with recent budget cuts plans to attend one of the workshops.
Doug Muirhead, 62, a resident of LaCrosse Village, said he doesn’t have any “specific outcomes in mind,” but would like to see the police develop an objective way to measure the effect of their work on the community without giving them a “blank check,” he said.
The only consistent crime activity Muirhead, who is retired, sees in his neighborhood is an occasional spree of automobile break-ins and many incidents of graffiti, which he reports to the MHPD via its website.
“My personal preference would be to see officers out of their cars, talking to people,” Muirhead said. “That almost never happens around here.”
Muirhead also thinks eliminating the department’s animal control officer position was “a mistake,” and he’s concerned about budget problems “from both ends of the issue” – the increasing consumption of the city’s discretionary budget by fire service and police costs, and the potential reduction of public safety services.
For fiscal year 2011-2012, police and fire services combined – including wages and other personnel costs – make up about 90 percent of the general fund budget.
The department has also recently enacted some internal changes due to lost positions or resigned staff people in order to temporarily re-assign certain duties to those who remain, Swing said.
When former Capt. Joe Sampson left MHPD to take a similar job in Oceanside, the chief assigned Sgt. Shane Palsgrove to an interim administrative position, in which he handles some of the responsibilities formerly shared between the city’s two captains, including training oversight, internal affairs, fleet acquisitions and other duties.
Plus, Swing assumed responsibility for the department’s emergency services division, formerly under the purview of Sampson, who eventually withdrew his name for candidacy for the Oceanside position, according to Oceanside Lt. Leonard Mata who did not say why he did so.
The city does not have any current plans to fill the vacant captain’s position, and Swing said it will likely not be filled before June 30, 2012 – the end of the current fiscal year.
Other staff changes are the upcoming retirement of an MHPD sergeant in December, plus some injuries that have required some officers to take “indefinite leaves of absence” in recent months, Swing said.
And in another potential solution that is more long-term but unrelated to the outcome-based strategy, is an upcoming study on the possible consolidation or regionalization of police communications services, Swing said.
Currently, Morgan Hill police, Gilroy public safety services, Santa Clara County fire and Calfire operate their own dispatch centers. Since the economic meltdown of 2008, many residents, the Santa Clara County civil grand jury and the Local Agency Formation Commission have suggested that consolidating those employees and equipment into a single operation that serves all the local agencies could save money.
The MHPD will take part in such a study later this fiscal year, Swing said. That could give the city some time to determine what it will do with a currently vacant half-time dispatcher position in its budget.
WORKSHOPS
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The MHPD will hold two public workshops to gather input on an outcome-based public safety strategy
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Where: Community and Cultural Center, 17000 Monterey Road, in the Hiram Morgan Hill room
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When: Two sessions – 1 and 3 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 22. Residents may attend either of the two sessions, or both.
