PF police face budget woes
POST FALLS – Calls for police service have grown by more than 50 percent over the past five years, but budget constraints have left the Post Falls Police Department unable to hire enough officers to keep pace with the city’s population growth.
The low-staffing situation became harshly apparent during a Jan. 18 officer-involved shooting outside Real Life Ministries church. That incident, in which a man had earlier fired shots outside the Spokane Valley Hooters restaurant, did not end with any serious injuries but it tied up all of the Post Falls officers who were on duty at the time, said police Lt. Greg McLean.
“Without mutual assistance from Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies we would have had problems,” McLean said.
Police Chief Cliff Hayes agreed the shooting brought home his department’s slim staffing.
“The four officers on duty were all involved in that. If something else happens you have no one to send,” Hayes said.
Post Falls has 1.3 officers for every 1,000 residents. In the mid-1990s the city employed 2.5 officers for every 1,000 residents.
“The goal is 2.0 officers per 1,000, but there isn’t enough money to get to that goal,” Hayes said.
Reaching that goal would require hiring an additional 14 officers on top of the 36 the city now employs.
In the meantime, Hayes said, officers don’t spend as much time patrolling streets for problems or traffic violations. Instead they spend more time running from call to call.
The numbers of those calls for service continues to grow. In 2002 Post Falls police responded to 18,341 calls. Last year that number grew to 27,826 calls.
City officials acknowledge that the police could use more officers, but finding the money to hire them is not easy.
Post Falls police are paid for primarily with general fund dollars raised mainly through property taxes. While the city can use impact fees from construction projects to pay for police facilities, that money cannot be used for ongoing costs, said Post Falls Finance Director Shelly Enderud.
That question came up at a recent Post Falls City Council meeting, when City Councilor Skip Hissong asked why such a large portion of impact fee proceeds goes to parks rather than public safety.
Parks have more capital costs to buy land and make improvements while police costs are heaviest on the personnel side.
“What good are parks if they aren’t safe?” Hissong asked, adding that the current 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents is a “catastrophe waiting to happen.”
Enderud said that Hayes requested money for 12 new officers to be hired this year, but that money didn’t make it into the approved budget. In fact, the 2008 police budget was no higher than the 2007 departmental budget with the exception of allowing growth for already approved or contracted pay raises.
A $358,000 police budget increase in 2007 allowed the department to hire three new officers, an information services employee and the promotion of a lieutenant to captain.
Enderud said that was 50 percent of the funding the city allocated for new personnel last year. The Police Department’s $4.17 million budget in 2008 makes up about one quarter of the city’s general fund budget.
Increasing the general fund revenue stream would likely mean increasing taxes, Enderud said.
She added that the city’s elected officials struggle when it comes time to make decisions about which departmental requests will be honored.
“Public safety is obviously the highest priority for most people, but there are other things the city has to fund to get people to and from work and get city business done,” she said.
Hissong, however, said he’s confident money can be found. “If you try hard enough, there’s always a way.”