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Plan puts 40 new police on street
By DAVID HUNT, The Times-Union
May 13, 2008
Timeline
Monday: Plans are announced to hire 40 police officers and dispatch them in high-crime areas.
Today: The City Council is scheduled to vote on a bill allowing $300,000 to be transferred from the jail budget to fund salaries through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30.
July: The 40 hires are expected to begin training.
June 2009: The new officers are expected to be on patrol.
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Jacksonville officials announced plans Monday to hire 40 new police officers, the first expansion of the force in nearly a decade.
The city is using unspent jail funds to pay for new additions through the end of the city's fiscal year, Sept. 30. But with the city facing a 10 percent drop in anticipated property tax revenue and warning of potentially dire budget cuts, no one is certain where the funding will come from after that.
"I don't think many people would argue that we don't need more police officers, but we're trying to make ends meet. I'm sure the details will be debated heavily," City Council President Daniel Davis said.
The council is expected to see legislation today authorizing the new positions, which will be funded for the next several months with $300,000 in surplus inmate medical and food costs. Sheriff John Rutherford said corrections budget planners overestimated inmate overcrowding in the county lockup. "We're still over capacity. We're just not as over capacity as we thought we would be," he said.
The expansion would be the first since Jacksonville police grew by 30 officers with the help of federal grants in 1999, Rutherford said. If the council approves, the officers will be hired over the next several months and undergo an 11-month training regimen starting in July, putting them on the street by June 2009.
"This is not going to be a quick fix, but this is a critical step," Mayor John Peyton said.
Because the training classes can take 40 officers at a time, Peyton said city officials scoured the budget to free up enough money to hire that many.
The expansion increases the number of sworn police officers to 1,706. Rutherford said he expects needing between $1.2 million and $1.5 million to continue funding the positions annually. Other needs, such as patrol cars and equipment, are expected to cost millions more but will be absorbed in future budgets, he said.
While announcing the plan Monday, Rutherford and Peyton each stressed the need for more officers.
Violent crime overall is on the rise, but Jacksonville saw 152 homicides in 2007 and has seen 43 so far this year.
"We're putting a stake in the ground. We are the murder capital of Florida. It's one of the greatest barriers to our future, being in a violent city," Peyton said.
Rutherford and Peyton agree on the need for more officers, but the question is how many the city can afford.
Several months ago, Rutherford asked for 225 additional officers. The law enforcement committee for the anti-crime initiative, Jacksonville Journey, recommended hiring 101.
"We got 40. That's not much of a dent. We're still seeking more," Rutherford said Monday.
He acknowledged taking money from the jail budget at a time short-staffing is costing the corrections department nearly $7 million annually in overtime. Citing a recent audit by California-based Matrix Consulting Group, Rutherford said the jail is short more than 100 corrections officers.
Police union chief Nelson Cuba has said the shortage was partially to blame last month when an inmate raped a corrections officer twice while holding her in the jail's law library.
Rutherford said the decision was not meant to say street patrols are more important than correctional work, but he said he thinks a stronger police presence could cut down the number of people incarcerated.
"We're not funding one thing instead of the other. We need both. But the police positions, if we don't get them out there, violent crime and murder will increase," he said.
Jacksonville Journey, estimated to cost $35 million, also calls for after-school and neighborhood programs intended to cut down crime.
John Rood, co-chair on the initiative's steering committee, said more uniformed officers on patrol is crucial.
"There are neighborhoods where children only see police when they're there to arrest someone," Rood said. "This isn't a brand new problem, but now that it has our attention, we have to deal with it."
david.hunt@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4025
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