Chief's Update: March 2010
As the snow melts and we enter the spring season our newest police recruits are going through the second Duluth Police Academy. You may recall we began the academy last year after finding many of the new police hires were not prepared for the realities of police work. Our washout rate for new hires was higher than we wanted and it was costing us time and money. The first DPD Academy was a success in preparing our new police officers for the job when judged by the comments from citizens, business owners, veteran police officers and supervisory staff. Additionally we retained 100 percent of the hires in the first academy class. Needless to say we are pleased and proud of our Training Unit for their work with the academy and new police recruits. Please join us on March 26, 2010 at 1:00 PM for the annual swearing in of our new police officers and recognition ceremony at the DECC. Since the topic of overtime spending is a hot topic as of late I wanted to let you know how your police department did for 2009. Through the hard work of our supervisory staff in addition to aggressively seeking overtime grant reimbursement we were roughly 20% UNDER budget. The $103,001 we turned back to the City's general fund helped cover shortages in other City operations. Managing overtime in the police budget is challenging to say the least. We have to ensure we have sufficient staff to respond to calls, investigate cases, and keep our City safe. Additionally, when we are investigating a homicide or other serious crime we have to allow our investigators to work through the leads. We can't just send them home when they are hot on the trail of a dangerous felon because their shift ended. Additionally, serious crime happens during every day of the week and at all hours of the day. Therefore we frequently have to call staff in to process crime scenes, help interview witnesses, prepare search warrants, and work with victims on solving the case. A single homicide can quickly rack up tens of thousands of dollars in overtime. A homicide a few years ago ran up over $100,000 in associated costs. I hope this provides some insight into the difficulties in managing police overtime. I assure you, we review our overtime costs on a weekly basis and do all we can to ensure we are being good stewards with our tax payer's money. Balancing police overtime with ensuring we provide the highest level of service is a daily struggle that often proves to be one of the more challenging aspects of being the police chief. If you are interested in learning more about our budget and the difficulties we face, I would like to invite you to one of my favorite police programs. Now in its 14th year, the Citizen's Police Academy is designed for those who work or live in Duluth who want to see behind the scenes operations of our department. Topics such as death investigation, police canine, police budget, use of force, crime scene investigations, community policing, drugs and gangs are covered to name a few. If you are interested in attending the Academy is set to begin on Wednesday Night, April 14th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM and run every Wednesday for 11 weeks ending with a graduation ceremony on Wednesday evening, June 23rd, 2010. Interested citizens can contact the Duluth Police Department Training Office at 730-5040 for application information. Lastly we recently hired our newest canine. The 14 month old German Shepherd came from the Czech Republic and has been named Malikai. Malikai means 'my messenger' or 'angel from God.' Malikai is heading off for 12 weeks of intensive training before he hits the streets. I have to take this opportunity to thank all of the communty members who so generously donated to help us buy Malikai. We woud not have him if it wasn't for those who were so genrous. Hopefully you will have an opportunity to meet him soon.
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