Open Mike for Idaho Falls City Workers March 2007

The police department is currently looking for a dispatch supervisor to come in and clean house. Over the years the dispatch center has had a lot of trouble hiring and then retaining good employees due to the extremely stressful job which is compounded by low pay and very hostile supervisors within the dispatch center. There have been several good dispatchers who have taken drastic paycuts to work elsewhere simply due to the hostile work environment in the 911 center. Whats left is a lot of people who view the job as a temporary job and those who can’t get better elsewhere.

This part is personal opinion but most of the candidates I’ve heard so far are underwhelming to say the least. But at least so far we don’t see any officer’s wives in desperate need of a job applying *cough* Irene Brown *cough* animal control *cough*.

Guest: i would like to publish this as an article to generate it’s own important discussion, may I have permission to do that? (I can verify IP addresses of commenters, so pranksters begone.)

I want to add my voice to this. Over the last many years, I have watched the local Governments, here treat their respective Law Enforcement Officers as a necessary evil. Both the County and the City have let the pay relative to other agencies fall. They have used excuses about cost of insurance and losing tax revenue as reasons. But don’t those same thing occur every place else? Answer; Yes of course they do, it is all about priorities. Here those priorities do not include paying Law Enforcement a fair wage. They also try to get by with the cheapest equipment and poorest facilities, and not enough Officers.
They have a take it or lump it philosophy when it comes to providing for those who serve. They don’t believe this is a problem and always have a lame excuse for not trying to move the wages back up compared to the other big agencies in the state. We have already seen one of the Cities blatantly false wage reports to try and cover their contempt for Law Enforcement. It is truly sad because even though they don’t get as many applicants as they used to. They have managed to hire some very good and really dedicated people. Many of whom don’t leave only because they are from here and have family here. It has been brought to their attention and they just don’t care.
This area is on the verge of a real boom, and a boom while good for the economy will bring with it a huge increased load on Law Enforcement. Unfortunately our leaders lack the vision to learn from other growing communities. They are determined to make all the same mistakes that have been made over and over again. They will not hire the needed Officers to keep our community the nice safe place we have grown used to. They will only react when the public gets angry after the problem is well established. Then the catch up begins, problem is that the bad element will have had time to move in, get established, and will be that much harder to control. Go ask a old time SLC or LasVegas Officer, both those cities had to try and catch up. Boise had to offer cash incentives and lateral transfers to try and catch up to.
Anyone can check the national averages and see that both agencies are understaffed for the populations they serve. History will show you that failing to pay your local infrastructure is a really bad idea. It will also show that waiting to play catch up is a very poor and in the long run more expensive game plan. I hope the great people of this community wake up and see this before it is too late. This pattern has repeated itself all over the country and our visionaries are going to do the same thing. They are putting their collective heads in the sand and believing that it just won’t happen here.
Having the crime rates jump like will happen during a boom and not being prepared is totally irresponsible. But as the person who wrote the original post here pointed out this is happening right now.
People can try and get the elected leaders to act, or they can bury their heads with them in the sand and believe that this community is immune to what happens every place else in this country.

As to the retirement issues they can not fix the State Retirement Plan alone but they could support the efforts of Law Enforcement State wide to persuade the State Legislature to fix it. There are only a small number of States left that have not gone to 20 year retirements for Law Enforcement.
Local Government could agree to help retiring Officers out with Medical insurance for a limited number of years. This would allow many who are approaching 60 and even older to leave. Many of them stay because they can not afford to purchase coverage.
This should be easy for people to understand. Do you want a 62 year old Officer or a 30 year old Officer responding to your home in the middle of the night? I know that the 18 to 30 year old doped up criminals hope it is a really old guy.

Next time you see one of our local leader ask them about this stuff, it is your community.

they are required to accept low bid unless proven inferior.

To anonymous in post 7….How did you come to this information? Is there something in writing that can confirm this sad state of affairs? I can’t believe this! We just plunked down bucko bucks for a new park with city tax dollars. It seems to me that Chuckars spending should stay here in Idaho Falls, if not Idaho, at least to help pay for our investment?

Hey, the Chuckars have to make a buck..I realize that. However, if we keep spending here in the local community it creates more spending locally..which helps businesses here…and collects more sales taxes…which allows for more spending on local projects. I don’t want to have funds travel back east and help them out when we can do it here…assuming of course we are not talking about a major price difference! It’s kind of like the Buy Idaho spots Kempthorne was asked to do years ago…the old adage…”Buy Idaho. The Job You Save May Be Your Own” while cheesy was accurate.

Back to the pay for local law enforcement, is there any hope that the Mayor, as a former cop, will help increase at least the IFPD’s payscale?

I have no way to know and would appreciate any insight from those who may.

Thanks

Well with the price of gas thats probably a good deal. Wish my job would provide me with a car and gas

What is the purpose of the officers taking the cars home, some of these officers live in neighboring cities. If the officer is home he/she is not on duty so whats the point? I’ve heard complaints about this but haven’t given it much thought til now.

The program is called the car per officer program. It has quite a few benefits and actually saves money for the city. Some scoff at that but the city council and Chief of Police can show you the figures if you doubt it.

Here is how it saves money. Before the program a police car typically lasted three years tops. And during that three years it was being run 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week, and as many as ten to fifteen different officers were using it a week. The maintenance costs were very high as cars being run 24/7 tend to break down a lot. It was common to put between 150,000 and 200,000 miles on a car in this time and all city driving which is hard on cars. And some officers didn’t treat the cars very well either but with so many operators it was hard to pin down who was abusing the cars.

The program was phased in gradually and now when an officer gets a new car its his car for six years minimum. After that the car is used as a spare car for a year or two. So already your doubling and sometimes tripling the life expectancy of the car. Plus maintenance goes down as the car gets a rest and because the officer is responsible for the car they tend to take care of it. If they break it in a reckless way they pay for it whereas before it was hard to determine who hotrodded the car and ruined the transmission or similar things to that.

The end result is that its actually cheaper for the city to give each officer a car. And the city charges all officers of Sgt level or lower $50.00 a month to be able to take the car home so its not as if the officers are totally getting something for free. Officers of Sgt level and lower are also prohibited from driving the cars anywhere but within the city of Idaho Falls with the exception being they can drive to their homes if they live out of town. Officers of Lt or higher can pretty much go where they please and don’t pay the fee either.

You also get other positives from the program.

One is increased visibility. If officers are driving the cars around on their off duty time people who see them will obey traffic laws. Many an officer has pulled people over while off duty. Many an off duty officer has also responded to emergencies because of this. The first officer on scene at a shooting several years ago was an off duty officer. The first officer at many traffic accidents are off duty officers. And so forth.

Another is quicker response times for officers and officers having the equipment they need. Police officers have to carry a lot of gear beyond what goes on their belt. Think traffic cones, evidence collection kits, and other necessary police tools. By having their own cars they know the gear is there whereas before it was always inevitable that half the stuff that was supposed to be in the car was missing.

As to the response times, think about your swat officers or officers in an emergency call in. Lets say there is a school shooting. Dispatch calls the officers who are off duty and assuming they are home they can be in their cars and on the way to the scene in minutes. Without a take home car they have to drive to station, find a car, load all their gear, and then go in route. In critical situation this could mean 20 to 30 extra minutes response time which isn’t good.

All in all the program is a good thing and both the chief of police and Ida Hardcastle of the city council love showing figures to people about the benefits of the program and the cost savings to the city.

“Anonymous Says:
April 10th, 2007 at 7:13 am
To OK4Now

Last year the mayor and city council gave the IFPD a pay CUT. Technically they got a 1.4% cost of living raise and the city picked up the increase on insurance. However, they also doubled the costs that officers pay to be able to drive a patrol car off duty. The end result was that the increase in cost was larger than the increase in pay.

So from what I hear the officers are not hopeful of getting anything from the new mayor.”

Anonymous, your grasp of economics is incredible. So the mayor and city council gave the officers a pay cut because of the increased costs of allowing them to use city vehicles on personal time. Since the inception of the program are you basically implying that the programs costs have remained static over the years? Are you saying that regardless of the rising costs of vehicles insurance and so on that the city should just eat these costs and not pass them on to the officers who benefit with the car and fuel?
Also last time I looked into this I found that nobody makes officers participate. So if the officers don’t like this decrease in pay as you put it they don’t have to participate in the program and pay the increased fee. So a voluntary program and associated costs are hardly an example of the mayor and city council’s willingness to pay it’s officers. Economics good. Knee jerk out on a limb totally subjective opinions not based on any economic principle … bad.

How about a parking lot with multiple levels? We need more parking downtown anyways.

How do people feel about officers that live in Iona, Ucon, and Shelley taking their cars all the way out there and back all the time? Are we getting our bang for the buck? Just asking. I am mixed on it.

In reference to Post 23 I would have to express certain concerns about living outside of the City and Taking home cars. There is an IFPD Officer that has a take home car that lives in Ucon, and frequently he can be seen returning to his home 2-3 and sometimes 4 times a shift. How can this be appropriate use of fuel provided by the City while he is on duty being paid for by the City. I think that we all understand the necessity for certain officers such as SWAT to have immediate response capabilities but in the example listed above there are abuses that need to be looked at by the Supervisors in charge.

dont the chuckars pay city lease fees?