Officials: police overtime best option
Paying overtime wages is a rising expense for many of St. Lawrence County's village police departments, but still less expensive than filling vacant police officer jobs, according to some village officials.
Faced with pressure to reign in property taxes, the villages of Canton and Gouverneur have reduced the size of their police departments over the past few years by not replacing officers who retire or resign.
Others communities are debating whether they can afford to fill jobs that become vacant.
Potsdam has two openings on its 14-member village police force, and village Treasurer David H. Fenton Jr. said he expects the cost of providing health and retirement benefits will be scrutinized by Potsdam village board members as they decide whether to fill the slots.
"After they retire, police officers can collect health insurance for the rest of their lives. It's a huge expense. That's part of what people are looking at," Mr. Fenton said. "This is a chance to look at what are the real long-term costs."
Mr. Fenton said the village of Potsdam spent $101,241 on police overtime in the 2009-10 budget, compared to the $113,000 that was allocated. In this year's budget, $117,430 has been budgeted for those costs.
In both Canton and Gouverneur, fewer officers has resulted in higher police overtime costs because there were more instances when a patrolman needed to work extra hours to cover staff shortfalls, records show.
However, extra overtime is still less costly than hiring new officers, according to both Gouverneur Mayor Dorothy L. Vorce and Canton Village Mayor Charlotte C. Ramsay.
"There will always be overtime, no matter how small or large the force is," Mrs. Vorce said. "But when you hire an officer you have to pay salary, plus benefits. Their pay scale and their retirement is much higher than other departments."
In Canton, the village spent $94,476 for police overtime in 2008-09, exceeding the $68,600 that was budgeted. In the budget year that ended May 31, the village spent $86,081.
In Gouverneur, when the department was still fully staffed police overtime costs amounted to $52,897 for the 2007-08 budget year, according to records.
The following year, after Patrolman Arthur Shattuck resigned to take a job with the St. Lawrence County sheriff's department, those costs increased to $83,806, Mrs. Vorce said.
Expenses dropped with the year ending May 31, with police overtime totaling $61,120, she said.
Last June, the Gouverneur Village Board decided not to replace Sgt. Mark Ashley when he retired. The board also reduced Chief David C. Whitton's job to part-time and staffed the office with four part-time dispatchers. The Gouverneur police department now has one sergeant, four patrolman and a part-time chief.
Filling a police officer job brings long-term financial consequences because contracts usually allow officers to retire after 20 years of service, leaving future village taxpayers to pay retirement and health insurance for the rest of the retiree's life.
Both Mrs. Vorce and Mrs. Ramsay point out that besides the annual salary, hiring a police officer requires providing for worker's compensation, health insurance and retirement pay.
While a starting salary for a Canton village patrolman is $34,000, about 50 percent more is required to cover the other benefits, Mrs. Ramsay said.
Trimming the size of the Gouverneur police force and cutting Police Chief David C. Whitton's job to part-time was a difficult step, but Mrs. Vorce is still convinced it was the right choice for the village and its taxpayers.
Hiring a patrolman and reinstating Chief Whitton's job to full-time would result in a 9 percent increase in the village tax levy, a hike that residents can't afford, the Gouverneur mayor said.
"We have high unemployment and we have infrastructure needs here," Mrs. Vorce said. "Every department in our village has been cut."
Chief Whitton said reduced staff has left his department "dysfunctional" and overtaxed the remaining officers, leaving them more susceptible to injuries and other problems.
"We are substantially understaffed," he said "We have gaps in our responses. It's a real mess."
But Mrs. Vorce disagrees.
"I'm not getting any complaints from the public about the police department because they're getting the job done. If the public isn't happy, they're not coming to me with it," she said.
Based on monthly records, Mrs. Vorce said the number of police calls and arrests has also remained the same as past years, despite a smaller staff.
"We have to do more with less and that's what our police department has done," the mayor said. "I'm very proud of our police department. We also have state police and sheriff's department available."
In Massena, the existing police contract has a minimum staffing requirement, known as a "manning clause," which limits the village board's ability to reduce the size of the 22-member force, trustee Joseph A. Macaulay said.
"The contract doesn't expire until 2012, so at this point we're at status quo," Mr. Macaulay said. "Anything we do will have to be done in the future."
Overtime expenses for Massena police amounted to $244,879 for the year ending May 31, according to Daniel E. Case, village tax collector.
In 2009, the city of Ogdensburg spent $203,512 on police overtime, an increase over the $161,000 spent in 2008, according to city Comptroller Philip A. Cosmo. The department includes 29 officers, four dispatchers and a court stenographer.
