Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee Meeting - June 5, 2024
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee Meeting - June 5, 2024
The Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee met on June 5, 2024, to discuss police staffing, speed enforcement, calls for service diversion, and school resource officer programs. The meeting began with the approval of the previous month's minutes and included detailed presentations and discussions on each topic.
Consent Calendar
- Minutes from the May 1, 2024, meeting were approved unanimously.
Discussion Items
-
Police Hiring, Recruitment, and Attrition Update (Commander William Jew, Marketing Supervisor Seth Landau): The Phoenix Police Department currently has 2,532 sworn officers, with a projected end-of-year count of 2,557. Commander Jew noted that large agencies nationwide are struggling to hire, while small and medium agencies are recovering. Councilman Waring expressed concern that the department may be accepting a "new normal" of around 2,500 officers, rather than reaching the target of 3,125. He questioned whether it is time to redeploy resources based on current staffing. Marketing efforts include a redesigned website (joinphxpd.com) that saw a 400% increase in monthly traffic, partnerships with GCU, Arizona Diamondbacks, and University of Arizona Athletics, and a new lateral pay step policy. Councilman Robinson questioned the return on investment (ROI) for the advertising agency "on media," stating he does not see results commensurate with spending. Commander Jew noted that the average time from application to hire is two months, with a goal of one month. The department averages 214 new applicants per month and 10 lateral applicants. A new program allows lateral officers to receive credit for prior service years toward pay step. Councilman Waring requested data on whether the pay raise in August 2023 affected application numbers. Councilman Robinson suggested expanding the $2,500 referral bonus citywide to all employees.
-
Speed Enforcement Update (Assistant Chief Nick DePonz, Commander Grady Carlson): Pedestrian accidents are up 6% overall, and bicycle-involved pedestrian accidents are up 12.1%. Of pedestrian accidents, 87% are the pedestrian's fault. In 2024, there have been 39 fatal pedestrian collisions, with 74% involving pedestrians crossing mid-block, walking, standing, or lying in the roadway. The traffic unit has only 33 motor officers, down from 129 in 2000. A new data-driven enforcement program uses radar trailers to identify high-risk corridors. Top speeds recorded include 97 mph in a 45 mph zone and 120 mph in a 45 mph zone. DUI investigations dropped 30% year-over-year, attributed to manpower shortages. Councilman Waring emphasized the need for more officers to address traffic safety and DUI enforcement. The department is planning a pedestrian safety campaign.
-
ASU Collaborative Assessment of Calls for Police Service (Exec. Asst. Chief Derek Elmore, Cmdr. Julie Agea, Admin. Nicole Dietrich): In 2023, the communications bureau received 1.8 million calls, dispatching 32% (591,000). The other 65% were mitigated without officer dispatch. The study focused on eight call types: found property, abandoned vehicles, parking complaints, minor damage non-injury accidents, check welfare, noise complaints, civil matter standbys, and intrusion alarms. Recommendations include increasing police assistants (PAs) to handle diverted calls, improving policies for parking complaints (creating a priority four call), and exploring citizen drop-off for found property. For noise complaints, a summer task force pilot (June 1 – August 31) will deploy two squads Thursday through Sunday, 5 p.m. to 3 a.m. For civil standbys, options include limiting response hours to 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. and referring callers to MCSO. For intrusion alarms, 95% are false; code enforcement recommends increasing false alarm fees and implementing a verified response. Councilman Robinson requested research on cities that do not respond to alarms without verification.
-
School Resource Officer Update (Commander William Jew): The department currently deploys 67 SROs covering 77 schools. For the 2024-25 school year, two additional SROs will be added, totaling 69 SROs covering 81 schools, with 12 schools sharing an SRO. 20 school districts are covered. Challenges include consistency of training, communication with off-duty management (ODM) officers from other jurisdictions, and staffing. Solutions include standardizing training for SROs and school safety officers (SSOs), inviting ODM officers to training, mapping all schools (600 completed, 67 remaining), establishing reunification points for critical incidents, and creating a communication list for ODM officers. Councilman Robinson noted the importance of communication with ODM officers.
Key Outcomes
- Approval of minutes from May 1, 2024.
- Direction to include land mass and agency size data in future PERF surveys.
- Request for data on the impact of the August 2023 pay raise on applicant numbers.
- Councilman Robinson requested a re-evaluation of the "on media" advertising contract if measurable ROI is not demonstrated.
- Councilman Waring suggested conducting exit interviews with applicants who choose other departments to understand their reasons.
- Commitment to implement the data-driven traffic enforcement program using radar trailers.
- Summer noise complaint task force pilot (June 1 – August 31) to be evaluated.
- Continue exploring Carfax and an IT platform for accident reporting.
- Increase false alarm fees and engage top repeat offenders.
- Standardize training for SROs and SSOs, and improve communication with ODM officers.
- Map remaining schools before the new school year.
- Next meeting scheduled for September 2024.
Meeting Transcript
Good morning and welcome to the Wednesday, June 5th, 2024 Public Safety and Justice Subcommittee. I will call the meeting to order, and then we will um go to the attorney, Jennifer Vega to explain public comments. Good morning, madam chair and committee members. Excuse me. During citizen comment, members of the public may address the subcommittee for up to three minutes on issues of interest or concern to them. The Arizona Open Meetings Law permits the subcommittee members to listen to the comments but prohibits members from discussing or acting on the matters presented. Members of the public may speak for up to two minutes to comment on agenda items to be discussed. Comments must be related to the agenda item and the action being considered by the subcommittee. The city council and staff cannot discuss or comment on matters related to pending investigations, claims, or litigation. Thank you. Thank you so much. And now we will take a moment to allow our interpreter, El Cuerte, to introduce ourselves. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, my name is Elsie Duarte. I will be servicing a Spanish interpreter for today's public safety and justice subcommittee session. I will now take a moment to introduce myself to our Spanish speaking audience and review some guidelines. Thank you so much. Okay. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes from the May 1st, 2024 meeting? I have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, the motion passes unanimously. So and just for the record, we are going to take um move item three down to after item five. Start first with our police hiring recruitment and attrition update. And for that item, we will hear from Commander William Jew and Marketing Supervisor Seth Lando. Thank you both for being with us today. Uh to see how we compare. Since 2019, the police executive research forum or PERF has conducted a survey of its 214 member agencies to measure their hiring and attrition rates. And what the PERF found was that small agencies now have more sworn officers than they had in January 2020, and medium agencies are treading upwards towards the 2020 staffing. Large agencies, however, like us, uh sworn staff and lease sworn staffing slightly continued to decrease, but show signs of leveling out during 2023. Like staffing, there has been an increase in percent change in hiring in small and medium agencies starting in 2021, where agencies are seeing increases in applications and hiring. Larger agencies, though, have not had as significant an increase. So to compare us, the Phoenix Police Department finished the calendar year of 2023 with 2,555 officers in sworn-filled positions. Our current staffing today at the midpoint of the year is 2,532. So based on these historical numbers, the known retirements plan for this year, budget and research predicts our staffing at the end of click the calendar year will be 2,557 sworn-filled officers. Councilman Waring has a question. So this particular number, the plus two over the course of a whole year, at one point, um, and I can't remember what meeting that was, but we were actually gaining month by month, year by year. This kind of indicates to me it's fallen off a little bit again. Um Chairwin O'Brien, members of the subcommittee, Councilman Waring, uh, numbers that are verified as since I have taken over. Um, these were the numbers we have dropped and dropped off, and the numbers from 2023 showed a decrease where attrition uh outpaced hiring. Uh, but based on these numbers, this is from budget and research, these are also projection numbers, which would show uh the 2,557 at the end of this year. Um what I remember saying at that meeting was there's a little bit of excitement that you know things were moving in the right direction again, but that it would take 12 and a half years to get back to the 3125. Now it looks like we're never gonna get there. Uh we're a large city, obviously, and that hiring has fallen off the table. I mean, at some point, you know, I have to discuss it now. Maybe it's not even your responsibility. Are we just recalibrating that this is the new normal? Right.
openpublica.com