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Aldermen weigh in on public safety |
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Monday, 18 August 2008 |
Benton council members offer thoughts on proposals in recent report from public safety group
Seven members of the Benton City Council responded to the Courier’s e-mail request to share their views of a recent report from the Citizens Public Safety Committee.
That group of seven citizens met for seven months, studying the city’s police, fire and communications departments, and concluded, among other things, that the residents of Benton would be better served if those three departments were overseen by a public safety commission.
The aldermen were posed this question: “As you are aware, the Citizens Public Safety Committee recently presented a report of its seven months of study. Included in that report were several recommendations, including one supporting the formation of a public safety commission to oversee the police, fire and communications departments of the city. Would you share your views on the possible establishment of such a commission and any other recommendations the panel recommended?”
One alderman, Larry Wolf (Ward 1, Position 1) does not have an available e-mail and telephone messages were left with him, but he did not respond.
Second e-mails were submitted Friday to Aldermen Charles Cunningham (Ward 2, Position 1) and Doug Stracener (Ward 5, Position 2) who had not submitted responses, but neither responded.
Following are the responses from the seven aldermen who submitted comments:
Greg White (Ward 1, Position 2)
“First, all commissions are established according to the statutes set forth in the Arkansas State Law. The law allows cities to decide if they want to form these commissions. The Public Utility Commission, the Advertis-ing and Promotion Com-mission, and the Parks Commission are all formed by ordinances following the guidelines allowed by the Arkansas state law. Likewise, the Civil Service Commission, currently serving the city of Benton, was formed by ordinance and follows the guidelines established by the State law. This commission is the commission that has authority to address issues for fire and police.
“The state law has no other code that affords a city to form any other type of Public Safety Commission. The Civil Service Commis-sion has an obligation to set the testing standards for application of potential employees, along with rank advancement testing. The commission also serves as a hearing board for employee disciplining concerns, in-cluding wrongful discharge. This is important, because it allows the removal of politics from hiring and firing practices. The law is also clear in stating that this commission has no authority in the daily management, either directly or indirectly, of the fire and police departments. This includes the financial budgeting process.
“The only function, under law, that the Benton City Council still has is the authority to grant this commission the authority to hire and replace the chiefs of the fire and police departments. The Benton Council, in the past and seemingly now, has adopted the policy that this function rests solely with the mayor’s office. With all that said, I believe that the idea of another public commission is not allowed under the authority of the state law and therefore, we as council have no authority to seek forming such a commission.
“As far as additional revenues; obviously, the city can use additional funding to help meet the costs of public safety. But it needs to be noted that this same council has set in motion a way to fund 10 additional police cars on a five-year cycle and a $400,000 capital infusion for fire vehicles on a four-year cycle. All we have to do is continue to use the lease plans that we have in place and budget those payments. However, this does not take into account future stations and future employees needed to accommodate the growth of the city, especially in expanded annexations into heavy residential populations, such as Salem. Additional taxes would probably be necessary to afford such substantial growth.
“The annexation at exit 114 will give us time to consider the tax question as it will probably take a few years to see a station needed in that area.
“Finally, in my view the most pressing question from the report was the need to reinstate [the fire department’s] advanced life support. It again must be noted that this council attempted to address this issue in the first two months that I started serving as an alderman. The idea of consolidating 911 with the county will afford reinstatement of ALS.The potential savings of the city would be around $375,000 and that money could immediately be transferred to the fire department for funding of advanced life support. Ironically, some of the same aldermen supporting this committee’s report were against this idea of consolidation in 2007.
“Obviously, this issue is a complicated issue. It will take several meetings to come up with a plan that meets the needs of the report and that the public finds affordable. If the issue is just about additional taxes, we would be able to bring that to the ballot in November. However, this issue is about planned city growth and prioritizing the needs of our police and fire departments along with meeting the expectations of our citizens.”
Joe Lee Richards
(Ward 2, Position 2)
“The Citizens Public Safety Committee has accomplished a lot of good work. The problem is there is no way implement their recommendations unless the people of Benton want to pay higher taxes and they seem to be split on this motion at this time.
“We could never dedicate the amount of the city budget that they have said we should. After this year’s four (4) percent raise (for general fund employees, which includes fire, police and communications de-partments), it seems we are at the top of our spending. I don’t know where the money will come from for future raises without a tax increase.
“We could only increase the real estate tax by .5 mils. We are now at 4.5 and state law allows only 5 mills total. I leave it up to the voters what they want to do. A sales tax is an equal way that everyone would pay. But, I still leave it up to the taxpayers. The majority vote will be the way we go.”
Jerry Ponder
(Ward 3, Position 2)
“I would first like to thank the members of the Citizens Public Safety Committee for their many hours of work over the course of several months. They volunteered their time to research the past, present and projected future needs of our city’s public service needs.
“As I understand it, there is currently no state statute that covers the formation and supervision of a public safety commission. I believe that the CPSC’s recommendation was based upon their perception of how well our PUC functions along with utilities General Manager Terry McKinney. Whatever the situation that our city and others face, and what many of us speak about when seeking our respective offices, whatever can be done to remove personal agendas, bias and “politics” from the equation, when making decisions regarding any aspect of what is best for our city has to be done.This is true regardless of whether a system such as the one currently in place or some other form that might succeed it.
“The funding aspects are not terribly different from those at one’s home. I will use my house as an illustration.
“As you know, Kristi and I share six children. When they were all at home, costs of their school clothes, school supplies, food to feed them, utilities to heat, cool and light our home did not remain the same, even though the number of kids we were dealing with remained constant once it got to 6. Our costs to provide those things went up each successive year.
“Our public safety and other needs in the city function in much the same way. Even if the personnel numbers remain constant, and our population were to have remained the same over the past seven years (which statistics prove is not the case, rising some 26-27 percent since 2000), the costs for salaries, insurance, maintenance for vehicles, fuel for vehicles and general overhead would have had to increase, just as they did at our home.
“It is not possible to have the same number of dollars coming into the city over that same course of time, and to be able to cover all those expenses and provide services at the same level. There must be some mechanism in place for increasing revenues to keep pace with expenses. There are obviously several forms that this could take, and varying opinions on how best to accomplish it. However, I do not believe that cutting personnel, as we were forced to do in 2003, is an option today. In my opinion, we cannot provide an appropriate level of public safety with fewer staff than we have today.”
If in fact, a funding mechanism is put in place, it is IMPERATIVE that our public safety not lose their current levels of funding. I will use the state of Louisiana, that we moved here from to illustrate this point. Louisiana set up a lottery to help fund public education. Sales of lottery tickets brought in millions of dollars. However, instead of adding those millions to the funds that were already being received prior to the lottery to implement improvement in schools, the legislature actually diverted some of the money previously used on education to other areas. This is wrong.
“In the example used by our CPSC, if a half-cent sales tax were put in place, it would generate some $2.2 million in sales tax revenue based upon current sales levels. Our current budget for public safety combined is approximately $7 million dollars. It would be inappropriate to move any of the funding currently in place to other areas, simply because our citizens provided us with DEDICATED revenue of some $2.2 million through passage of the tax. This speaks in part to those personal agendas, bias and “politics” that I referred to earlier.
“When I ran for office, I stated that I would like to see ALS (advanced life support) return as a function of the city. This is still the case. If this could be done as suggested by the committee, in conjunction with private ambulance service, that would be fine. Chief Blank-enship presented a scenario prior to my becoming a member of the council whereby such a city-provided service could not only be self-sustaining, but actually profitable. We cannot sacrifice the level of service to our city, in the interest of either the city or private business being profitable.
“I do believe that an arrangement can be reached that will allow the service to be provided at levels that exceed today’s without harming private enterprise. I also agree with the committee in that this should be a part of the process as a new (ambulance) franchise agreement is negotiated to replace the current one. This needs to occur well before expiration of the current agreement so that all involved parties can prepare accordingly.
“In summation, our city has grown in area and population. All indications are that both of these trends will continue to some level. Every citizen has the right to expect adequate police and fire protection, and as a city our charge is to provide for the peace, health and safety of those citizens. It costs money to do those things. We all have to do our part as citizens,and as a city to ensure that this occurs.”
Bill Donnor
(Ward 3, Position 1)
“In reference to the formation of a Public Safety Commission, currently there is not any state statue in place that would allow this commission to be created. I do feel that this issue will be looked at in the Health and Safety Committee.
“I believe that it is critical to set aside the current funding of the public safety that is coming out of the general fund. Then if the citizens voted to add a new sales tax revenue on top of the current money from the general fund, then the public safety department could start moving forward in providing Advanced Life Support and other critical services. To often when new money is found, then the original source of money is often diverted to other areas and then public safety would be right back where they started. I believe that a referendum would have to be done to guarantee that a certain percent of the general fund will always be set aside to fund public safety.
“We have some serious work to do in the days to come in regard to the citizens report. I am looking forward to discussing the work of the citizens report with the Health and Safety Committee and work with the committee to come up with some recommendations to take before the full council.
Brad Moore
(Ward 4, Position 1)
“I would like to express my gratitude to the committee members for their dedicated service and to my fellow aldermen, Steve Lee and Bill Donnor, who were the originators of the committee.
“Regarding the proposed commission, it is my understanding state law does not provide for such a concept. Therefore, I do not support this facet of the committee’s proposal.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues to develop a reasonable public safety initiative. I will be adding an additional provision to upgrade our code enforcement efforts. I believe additional code enforcement officers are needed to strengthen our overall game plan for public safety.”
David Sparks
(Ward 4, Position 2)
“It is my understanding that Brent Houston (city attorney) has found that a commission like the one the Citizens Public Safety has recommended would be illegal. Therefore, this is a moot point.
“I feel the recommendation to bring a vote to the citizens of Benton for the support of fire, police and communications, is something I can support. Let’s let the people of Benton have a voice in this important matter.”
Steve Lee
(Ward 5, Position 1)
“At this time all aldermen should have a copy of the telephone survey and the final report of the citizens public safety committee. I am giving the council a little time to go over these reports and have several future health and safety meetings planned to go over all these requests and suggestions.
“We as a council should look at all these issues and come to a plan that will give the city of Benton the very best police and fire protection.
“I would like to encourage you to come to all of these health and safety committee meetings and be a part of this very important process to help ALL of the citizens of Benton. I hope that everyone involved in this endeavor will put the citizens of Benton first. This is bigger than any one person and will require the cooperation of the entire council and the mayor.
“I hope that the entire city will keep a close look at each step of this process. This has nothing to do with what the county may or may not be doing. This is strictly about OUR TOWN — BENTON. Just look at the controversy we have caused ourselves by knee-jerk reactions because of actions of our next-door neighbors, Bryant.
“Please let’s do our work in the committee rooms and let the media report our work. What the City Council did in the past is just that — in the past. What we have in front of us has the potential to benefit the future public safety departments of the city of Benton for many years to come. After all, state law dictates that cities shall supply police and fire protection to its citizens, so let’s give the citizens the best possible.”
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