A Summary on the Budget Issue: Police Department Defends Budget

Introduction

The article Police department defends budget by Carlson and Suzanne. TCA Regional News in Chicago is about how the commissioner of police Delroy Richards Sr defends the proposed police budget before the Senate committee and also assures the committee that the police department is working hard to lower the level of increased violence in St Thomas. The commissioner confirms to the committee that for the department to continue moving in the right direction of change and achieve the department mission, they will need enough funding. He explains the various developments and changes that are taking place in the department that require financing for them to achieve. The article compares the amount budget recommended for the department of police to the Senate in May 2017 which was $68,714,820 to governor Kenneth Mapps proposed a budget which was $66, 889, 820 and current approved budget by the government which amounted to $63,430, 184.

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The police department uses expense budget which documents or records the normal amount of expense during the budgeting period. In this type of budget three variety of costs are usually evaluated which includes variable, fixed and discretionary (Wexler, 2010). In the article, the chairman of the committee senator graham shows his concern about the increased amount spent on the overtime pay. The chairman indicates that the department of police spent $9.8 million for the first half of the year and the amount is expected to rise by to $ 14.2 by the end of the year while the budget only allocates $5million for overtime (Carlson, 2016). The police commissioner promises to check the legislation to ensure that issue of overhanging overtime cost is reviewed and also assured to increase the amount of police also to help minimize the damage. The committee also expresses increased cost on lease from $667,237 in the year 2016 to the current $952,091 (Carlson, 2016). The police administrator Richardson jones assures the committee that the department is trying to relocate units out of buildings that are not compliant to the Americans without disability act and are not safe enough to be occupied. The administrator also states that the department is repairing the old facilities and buying new properties to reduce on the lease.

Challenges faced by the leaders in working through the budget issues

According to the articles the leaders are experiencing various problems that include, first, even though the police department is recruiting a large number of police officers they do not have enough police in the field to reduce on the cost incurred due to overtime. This problem is noted to arise due to the deployment of most of the recruits as peace officers in other government agencies in the area. This reduces the number of police officers serving the people. For example, most of the graduates from the police academy prefer to work as peace officers in other government agencies where they only work for fewer hours that is from 8 am to 5 pm instead of the police departments whereby police work in shifts around the clock (Carlson, 2016). Some agencies also tend to offer the peace officers more competitive salaries than the police officers. To solve this problem, the police commissioner promises to put the effort to supervise the peace officers and also determine the appropriate means of deployment in the area mainly during events like Joubert and carnival.

Secondly, with the increased cases of homicide in the area, the police are depending on the forensic evidence to solve homicide case considering that the forensic evidence usually takes a lot of time to process. For example, the police commissioner confirmed one case whereby evidence that was sent for processing six years ago returned recently. The police use forensic evidence due to witnesses refusing to come forward and testify in court on the cases of homicides. Thirdly, the department is also experiencing challenges in complying to the court-monitored consent that aims at upgrading the policing up to the needed constitutional standard or level this is due to the various drawbacks encountered in the departments such as lack of enough finance and enough policemen. The commissioner states that if the department fails to meet the deadline, they will have to seek a court extension.

How you as a criminal justice leader would work through the outlined budgetary issue

As a criminal justice leader I would lobby for various things in the budgetary issue, this includes. First, I would encourage the delivery of witness protection services. For example not slandering the name of the witness and provision of security for the witnesses. This would support the various homicide witness to come out without fear thus assisting in solving the pending homicide cases quickly. Secondly, I would lobby for quick processing of the available forensic evidence concerning the various homicide cases. This would facilitate the speedy delivery of justice and also identification of those responsible for the homicides. Thirdly, I would encourage the creation of policies that regulate the deployment of the police officers to be peace officers. This will help ensure that there are enough servicemen among the population and the high amount of money spent on overtime will be minimized.

References

Wexler, C. (2010). Survey reveals the extent of police budget cuts. In Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum.

Carlson, Suzanne. (2016). Police department defends budget. TCA Regional News; Chicago