By Shawn Hogendorf, Staff Writer 

As the city faces the deepest budget cuts it has seen in years, the Prior Lake Police Department is now in line to be affected by the crunch.

The budget cuts proposed by the current City Council include a plan for police officers to take 96 hours of furlough time in 2010.

The 96 hours per officer equates to the department losing one police officer, total, for 2010, according to Police Chief Bill O’Rourke. It will limit the department’s ability to conduct specialized patrol – such as responding to possible increases in traffic complaints, vandalism reports and burglaries – as well as impact the department’s ability to be more active in National Night Out and Neighborhood Watch programs, O’Rourke said.

The furlough would take one officer off the streets in 2010, but it is not as permanent as a layoff, O’Rourke said. He believes department heads can control furloughs through scheduling options.

“I don’t have any concerns for public safety [with the proposed furloughs] other than the fact that we will be limited to respond to special requests or directed patrol,” the police chief said. “The day-to-day operations should go on without a hiccup.”

But the proposed furlough on patrol officers is “definitely concerning” to Mary Ann Carter, a long-time resident of Prior Lake who has been in need of police services twice over the years.

“Instead of cutting law enforcement protection within a town that is growing, we need more protection,” Carter said. “With more people moving to the area, there will be more incidents. This is not the place I feel comfortable cutting [from the city budget].”

The gap

City leaders are trying to fill an expected $1 million gap in the 2010 budget, attributable to a combination of revenue reductions such as building permits, as well as increases in expenditures for personnel costs, debt service and Fire Relief Association contributions. The city has looked at multiple options, said Jerilyn Erickson, the city’s finance director.

Erickson and City Council members looked at reducing expenditures, reducing the contingency reserve, seeking cost-sharing from athletic and community organizations for field maintenance and community event expenses, exploring new revenue options and containing personnel services, she said.

“Personnel services make up 54 percent of the general budget, and that had to be part of the solution in meeting the $1 million gap,” Erickson said.

When the unions were approached, the city was looking for a unified solution in taking pay freezes with personnel, Erickson explained. When that was not accepted by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Law Enforcement Labor Inc. Local 100 (LELS), the city’s only option became furloughs and/or layoffs, she said.

Police officers do not have a contract in place for 2010. AFSCME does, and the union chose to keep the contract and vote down the pay freeze for 2010, Erickson said. Without a contract in place for the police officers in 2010, the city was looking for them to take a pay freeze or it would utilize the furloughs and/or layoffs.

If a contract is not reached for 2010, the one-year contract currently in place would be extended, said Assistant City Manager Kelly Meyer. With the economy the way it is, the city would like to settle the contract before January, but it doesn’t always work that way, she said.

So, if the proposed furloughs are accepted by the City Council, can the patrol officers file a grievance?

“People can claim anything,” Meyer said. “We feel the language of the contract is clear in stating it is within a manager’s rights to control the hours worked.”

But the language in the contract is a point of contention between the patrol officers’ union and the city, said Isaac Kaufman, the general council for LELS.

“It is the union’s feeling that a unilateral furlough would violate the terms of the contract and would be subject to the grievance procedure as outlined in the contract,” Kaufman said.

It may also be a constitutional violation on the part of the city because a furlough would “substantially impair” the contract in which the city is a party, Kaufman added.

The union argues that the contract guarantees officers a minimum payment on a monthly basis, Kaufman said. A furlough, which would cause the employees to receive substantially less pay in 2010 [about 5 percent], would be a violation of the contract – and therefore be illegal, he said.

The implementation of a furlough on the patrol officers, which Kaufman said seems imminent at this point, is subject to the grievance procedure and possibly a federal lawsuit, he said.

At this point the union has not decided for certain if it will file a grievance or a federal lawsuit, Kaufman said. The union is leaving its options open, he added.

The city looked across the board at all employee groups together to reduce about $165,000 in personnel cost, Erickson said. The 96 hours of police furlough time was calculated to achieve the cuts to personnel costs.

The decision had to be equitable across all union groups, which is why the city approached all the unions and asked them to take a pay freeze for 2010, she added.

All managers in the city, who are nonunion, agreed to take a pay freeze for 2010. Those managers include O’Rourke and Police Lt. Randy Hofstad, as well as City Manager Frank Boyles. There is also a tentative agreement in place for the three police sergeants to take a pay freeze in 2010.

Part-time staff in the police department, such as the community service officer and records clerks, will not be furloughed and will receive increases in 2010 per the AFSCME contract, Erickson said.

Before the LELS voted on whether to accept furloughs, department heads agreed to a pay freeze “to show the seriousness of what the city is facing,” O’Rourke said.

“This was not an easy decision to make. We were looking for all groups to help with a solution,” Erickson said. “Certainly, 2010 will be challenging. The challenge is city-wide, not just at the police department. It is a challenge and we are cognizant of that. Everyone is greatly impacted by this.”The goal in creating the budget for 2010 was to minimize the impact on residents, she said.

 “When people speak of trimming the fat out of the budget, you can trim fat, but we’re well past the fat and trimming bone now,” O’Rourke said. “The city has come up with a plan [for the budget shortfall] with furloughs.”

A couple of options

Instead of taking the furloughs, one option was to not replace the vacancy resulting from the recent termination of Officer Michael Ficken, O’Rourke said. But the department can’t count on the option of not filling that position for two reasons.

First, the department can’t afford to permanently reduce the police ranks from 23 to 22 officers, O’Rourke said. Second, with a grievance filed by Ficken and arbitration looming, there is no guarantee Ficken won’t get his job back.

“We can’t count on maybes,” O’Rourke said. “If Michael Ficken gets his job back through arbitration … then we would have to lay an officer off.”

Ficken’s position cannot be filled until the grievance he has filed goes through arbitration, O’Rourke said. As of last week, the arbitration had not been scheduled. Once arbitration begins, it could take 45 days for the arbitrator to make a decision.

If the arbitration went into 2010, the furloughs would have to be completed in less than a 12-month period, O’Rourke said.

“Not replacing that position is an option, but working in the long term with 22 officers isn’t,” O’Rourke said. “Working with 22 officers in the long term is ridiculous.”

Communities across the country are trying to deal with hard economic times while still providing the services people expect, O’Rourke said. As Prior Lake faces that reality, the police department is looking into changing scheduling options.

Currently, police officers work 10-hour days, five on duty followed by four days off duty. That fifth day is an overlap day, meaning more officers are on duty. On overlap days, the department generally conducts directed patrols that may focus on specific problems, and it completes officer training.

The department is planning on scheduling the furlough time during those overlap days when there are more officers on duty, O’Rourke said. That way, the department can still meet the minimums. But the department will still lose the ability to conduct special patrols.

The department will not use furlough time during its busiest months of June, July and August, O’Rourke said. The plan is to do 10 hours of furlough per month except during the summer.

 Nothing is off the table regarding scheduling, he added. The department was looking at moving from 10-hour shifts to 11¼-hour shifts to reduce overtime by allowing an officer to finish paperwork on a shift.

If an officer comes in an hour early to start a shift, O’Rourke explained, it allows the officer that is being relieved to come off patrol to complete paperwork that often causes overtime. If a shift starts earlier, that officer could also hand off a call that comes in just before the shift ends, which currently keeps the officer on duty longer, he said.

But the department doesn’t have the ability to do that when it’s short an officer, due to a vacant position, coupled with the proposed furlough time in 2010, O’Rourke said.

“A lot of the overtime, we don’t control,” he said. “The catch-22 is that more traffic work can potentially mean more time officers spend in court.”

A lot of officer overtime also comes with working serious crimes, he added.

When more officers become involved in serious crimes, more officers may be subpoenaed to testify in court, which can complicate a case, O’Rourke said. Often, officers work overtime in serious cases instead of handing it off to another officer.

“In that situation, the overtime is out of our control,” the chief added. “It’s the nature of the beast. It’s what makes the system run most smoothly.”

Cutting staff

The police force is already operating on a “lean” staff of 23 police officers total, O’Rourke said.

Those 23 sworn officers include two department heads, three sergeants, a D.A.R.E officer, a school liaison officer, two detectives, an officer dedicated to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux reservation and Ficken’s recently terminated position.

For a suburban city the size of Prior Lake, O’Rourke said the suggested number of sworn officers is 1.3 per 1,000 residents and 1.6 employees of the department per 1,000 residents. Currently, based on a population of about 25,000 people in Prior Lake, the department is below one officer per 1,000 people.

The seriousness of calls also plays into that ratio, as well, O’Rourke said. Prior Lake is a safe community that allows the department to be somewhat below the 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents, he said.

But the department also faces a unique situation with casinos on the reservation, O’Rourke said. Anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 people go to Mystic Lake every day depending upon what is going on.

The casino security staff handles a lot of the problems, O’Rourke said. If police respond, it’s usually criminal and police are needed to take someone to jail, but the security staff has already attempted to resolve the issue.

That said, everyone who goes to the casino has to drive through Prior Lake, O’Rourke said. The biggest complaint the department responds to is traffic-related incidents, and “furloughs or layoffs would obviously limit our ability to address traffic complaints,” he added.

When asked if cutting an officer would mean there could be a time when there is only one officer patrolling the city, O’Rourke said as far as scheduling goes, there shouldn’t be any time only one officer is scheduled.

“It may happen occasionally when two officers are scheduled and one has to go home sick,” he said.

When presented with furloughing officers or layoffs, O’Rourke said he would rather see the furlough because a layoff is permanent.

“In the long run, we will be in a better position to serve the law-enforcement needs of Prior Lake by being fully staffed, even if that means in the short run the staff is subjected to furloughs,” O’Rourke said.

An argument could be made for the need for a 24th officer, he said. If that happens in the future, but there is a layoff now, adding an officer would just get the department back to the surface.

“We’re trying to make this as palatable as possible,” the chief said. “I mean, how good does poison taste?”

Council members will approve the final budget in December.

 Shawn Hogendorf can be reached at (952) 345-6374 or shogendorf@swpub.com.