Occupying the biggest chunk of the city’s $348 million 2002 Fiscal Year budget, the Jersey City Police Department has been allotted $77.7 million by the business administrator’s office.
Only $300,000 short of what the department requested, Police Director James Carter and Fiscal Officer Bob Kakeloski said they found the mayor’s budget acceptable. For many, the satisfactory number is not surprising. Mayor Glenn Cunningham, who served as a Jersey City Police Officer for 17 years, has trumpeted his anti-crime initiatives from his days on the campaign trail through the first five months of his term.
One of the primary concerns of the Police Department is receiving the money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the months following the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks. According to Kakeloski, the combined cost of emergency services to the city has been estimated at a $7 million. Although Carter neglected to report how much he speculates FEMA will reimburse the Police Department, the department has filed paper work seeking approximately $5 million.
Because of the overtime accrued from September through November, the Police Department has already spent the $3.7 million allotted for overtime this fiscal year, which runs from July 1, 2001 to June 30, 2002.
The Police Department’s portion of the city budget accounts for 22 percent.
The budgeted amount is $3.4 million more than was charged by the Police Department last year, a difference almost entirely due to the expected retirement of 35 police officers. That means that the department will have to pay retirement benefits as well as hire new officers. Kakeloski said that there are more than 100 police officers eligible for retirement right now.
The Police Department has 14 trainees enrolled in the Police Academy who should be uniformed and on the streets by January, Carter said. He expects that 25 more police officers to be fully trained by the end of March.
Carter is also working on reopening the Jersey City Police Academy, allowing future Police Officers to receive training from department employees. "All we are looking at is for space to accommodate the academy," Carter said. Preliminary sites have included an area of the military base on Caven Point Road. The Redevelopment Agency is currently in negotiations with the military to acquire a piece of its property for those purposes, Carter said.
Although the department received the majority of its requested amount, it was denied $300,000 for purchasing more vehicles. Under the former administration, the Police Department purchased numerous marked vehicles, but failed to maintain an adequate supply of unmarked vehicles, Kakeloski said. He added, however, that the necessary funds for the vehicles have been attained through law enforcement block grants the department has received in the past few years.
As a cost-saving measure, the department is considering leasing cars, Carter said.
The bulk of the Police Department’s budget is devoted to salaries for the 832 uniformed officers, 196 civilian employees, and 196 part-timers. Cutting back in some areas, the Police Department has followed Cunningham’s advice of reducing the number of deputy chiefs from six to three.
Addressing a concern raised by several council people in the past, the Police Department has increased the number of school traffic guards to 185. Although the department employed 182 school traffic guards at the beginning of the 2001 Fiscal year, the number had been reduced to 170 in recent months, prompting parents to voice concern over the lack of safety.
Communications and computer equipment has always been a matter of fiscal priority for the Police Department, as it must keep its investigative tools up to date. While the budget allots for $650,000 in the maintenance of such equipment, council people addressed the need to update the equipment instead of simply repairing it. "Technology changes so fast," Councilman Mariano Vega said, "that we should probably be prepared to bite the bullet every four years."
A new communications system for the Police Department would cost $9 million, according to Kakeloski. He added that the department is seeking federal grants to fund this system in the next couple of years.
What is not clear according to the Police Department’s budget is the amount of money allotted for the Neighborhood Improvement District. That division addresses quality-of-life concerns like noise, litter and abandoned buildings. The former department has been downgraded to a division of the police department. Bordering on an identity crisis, the unit has also been divided amongst the city’s Housing and Economic Development and Commerce department.
The mayor’s office has budgeted $179,000 for the NID. The Police Department has decided that the unit will serve under the community relations division that Carter and Cunningham have been in the midst of structuring. Under this new organization, NID will have a civilian unit director, Greg Racelis, who will report to a lieutenant in charge of the community relations division.
"When NID was originally envisioned, it was supposed to be a reporting element for the police," Council President L. Harvey Smith said. "Somehow or another it never functioned in that capacity. I believe it’s because it never had the ability to get the police to respond." Smith added that the new organization takes steps to eliminate that problem by placing the unit within the police department.
Not all problems reported to NID will necessarily be the responsibility of the Police Department to correct. According to Carter, the unit will have the know-how to track down the right agency to address the concerns of citizens. This will allow citizens to have one place to address quality-of-life issues without having to locate the proper agency to correct the problem.
"As an oversimplification here, we have one-stop shopping," Carter said.