2017.08.16 Special Budget Meeting Agenda C

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Commission as it continues to move important public safety issues forward. The group is currently readying to public comment on the agency’s adoption of body cameras for police officers. As half of the Public Safety Commissioners are new to their roles, this has required increased staff liaison time to familiarize each with their citizen advisory process. Personnel Status and Strategy During a six‐month period beginning in mid‐2016, Police Division was challenged with the loss of five sworn peace officers due to retirements and resignations. While the agency has so far been successful in replacing four of the positions with new police officers, the impact on the field training officers and first‐line supervisors of the organization during the past year has been significant. As Public Safety has recently embarked on a recruitment effort with the final peace officer vacancy, we are hopeful that this last addition will lead to a period of stability with our sworn ranks. The Fire Division has witnessed a significant number of personnel changes as well. Since the beginning of 2016, four new Fire Captains and two new Deputy Fire Chiefs have been appointed to the leadership team. In addition, seven new recruit firefighters were added to the agency membership in June 2017. With the new members, the department returned to providing in‐house instruction for recruits to achieve state certification in the standards for professional firefighter qualifications. Further, we were able to accommodate a request from another metro area Public Safety Department to train two of their members in the firefighting curriculum. Two tenured New Brighton Firefighters who both have extensive experience with classroom instruction are leading this weekly training effort. As the new police officers hires impacted our availability of staffing specialty assignments, Public Safety did finally appoint a full‐time peace officer to the newly branded role of Community Engagement Officer in June 2017 after nearly a year vacancy of this position. While continuing to fulfill the previously titled duties of Crime Prevention Officer and Crime‐Free Multi‐Housing Liaison, this assignment has been tasked with increasing our agency’s involvement with the increasingly diverse populations and demographics of New Brighton who frequently reside in apartment properties, and also promoting inclusivity of interacting with our agency staff whether in proactive, relationship‐building settings or through reactive, response to calls for service. When a staffing departure occurred in 2017, Public Safety reevaluated its Public Safety Officers (PSOs) and split the vacant 30‐hour/week position into two, 20‐hour/week positions to increase recruitment of candidates who are enrolled in a post‐secondary law enforcement program. This approach to identifying potential peace officers internally through part‐time, civilian employment during their formal education to licensure has previously been successful for the agency in preparing potential full‐time, sworn candidates for anticipated future hiring processes as retirements occur within the organization. During 2017, the Police Division conducted a comprehensive audit of the department’s property/evidence room in preparation for a transition of the custodian duties from a member of the Criminal Investigation Section (CIS) to the Administrative Sergeant position. This is a return to the historical role of the Administrative Sergeant function and will allow the Detective who previously fulfilled this extra duty to refocus on investigative casework. A significant part of the audit and transition was migrating all property/evidence records from standalone software to the integrated property/evidence module within the Zuercher Police Records Management System (RMS). 60