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11/20/2017 11:00 PMWhile Madison is a small town, its population has grown over the years and so has the number of visitors who come to town for attractions like Hammonasset Beach State Park, the summer fireworks show, and local parades and events. As those numbers continue to rise, the number of police officers has either dropped or held steady, creating a continuing challenge, according to Madison Police Chief Jack Drumm.
At a recent Board of Police Commissioners meeting, Drumm spoke to commissioners and Board of Selectmen (BOS) liaison Al Goldberg about the need for more officers. Drumm said in the month of October, the department responded to close to 900 calls, almost 30 daily, covering everything from criminal investigations to motor vehicle accidents to alarms.
“We had 38 police officers in this town at one time back in the ’90s,” he said. “We have 29 officers and we have talked about 32 for how long now? Anything you can give me I will take because I am ordering officers to work double shifts and sometimes that works, but they have families, too.”
Goldberg said Drumm should ask for more officers in the upcoming budget. Drumm said that is the obvious course of action, but said he has asked for more officers year after year to no avail.
“I think we need 32,” he said. “I will put in the request, but we have asked this repeatedly. It is a broken record and we have gone from the color slides presentations to just handouts because it didn’t matter because people just said, ‘Well this isn’t the time.’”
Members of the commission said they are sensitive to the effect more officers would have on the town budget, but as Drumm has said before, he predicates his budget requests on a need, not on a wish. Over the years, Drumm said he has done what he can to keep the police budget level through regionalization efforts and the sharing of services with neighboring towns. The department has a regionalized animal control with Clinton and Westbrook, a shared gun range with Clinton, and an agreement that allows the Madison Police to use the Clinton Police boat, among other day-to-day efforts.
In addition to keeping down costs on the service said, Drumm said in the years he has been with the department in town, 10 police officers have not taken benefits, saving the town about $240,000 a year by not having to pay for that coverage. Drumm said if you take that figure and multiply it by the 10 years he has been chief, the town has saved nearly $2.4 million in not covering those benefits over the last decade.
“I am not saying, ‘Look at me,’ I am saying, ‘Why can’t I buy cops with that money?’” said Drumm. “I have done this and explained this in numerous meetings, but it doesn’t happen because there is always something else. There is no priority on [more officers], but yet when we have an event or a storm, these cops step up, fire steps up, and ambulance steps up.”
According to Finance Director Stacy Nobitz, the average cost of a patrol grade A officer with around five years of experience is $74,000 excluding benefits, taxes, and the like. Drumm said he might even be able to find that money for another officer in the current budget arrangement if the Board of Education is willing to shoulder 70 percent of the cost for one of the police officers stationed at the schools.
“We have an officer that we are not reimbursed for through the school system,” he said. “It’s hard to remove that officer because we started that after Newtown. We have an SRO [school resource officer] and we have a school security officer external to the schools. It’s a patrol in and of itself and having an officer there handles any issues that come up…We also have two armed officers there at the schools to give that peace of mind to those folks who might be concerned about events that could occur.”
Bringing in more budgeted police officers would theoretically help cut down department overtime costs. Nobitz said in fiscal year 2017, the town spent $180,000 in overtime replacement for the Police Department.
Police Commissioner Thomas Cartledge said the overtime numbers are not a reflection of poor management, but of the increasing demand placed on town police officers.
“There are comments at some of the selectmen meetings saying, ‘Why do you have police overtime?’” he said. “Well when you have traffic at Hammonasset backed all the way up to I-95, you have to put two or three officers there to patrol it and keep it civil. That sort of gets lost in translation as to why there is so much overtime.”
The Police Department is expected to put in a request for more officers in the upcoming 2018-’19 town budget. Certain town departments and committees have already begun the budget process, which will continue through the spring of 2018 before going to a town referendum.