Thanks to correspondent G. Coyle, who unearthed this 2004 study made for the City of Tacoma, Wash. The link was provided earlier in a comment posting, but we've decided to post the executive summary in its entirety.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Cost- Benefit Analysis of the Tacoma Police Department’s assigned vehicle program
Mercury Associates, Inc. was selected by the City of Tacoma to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of the Police Department’s Assigned Vehicle Program. The project involved initial data gathering including interviews with city and department staff, a survey of police officers, focus group sessions with and a survey of members of various Neighborhood Councils, and development of a quantitative model of the costs and benefits associated with the program. Three central questions were investigated as part of this project: 1) Should vehicles be assigned to officers or should officers share vehicles from a pool? 2) If vehicles are assigned, should officers be allowed to drive them home? 3) If officers take their vehicles home, what criterion should be used for setting the policy on how the city subsidizes commuting costs?
Mercury Associates is the largest fleet management consulting firm in the country and has assisted 200 public and private-sector organizations optimize their fleet management organizations and practices. Clients served in the past by members of our firm include all ten of the largest cities in the country; 28 states, Federal agencies including NASA and the U.S. Army; both public and investor owned utilities, and several prominent Fortune 500 companies. Our project team included Randy Owen, Mercury’s Senior Vice-President, who served as the Project Manager for this engagement; Dr. Donald Lauria of the University of North Carolina who conducted the economic analysis and authored the technical report for the project; and Dave Robertson, a Senior Associate with Mercury Associates and a former Fleet Manager for the City of Houston Police Department.
Interviews, Surveys, and Information Gathering Efforts
We began this project by providing the city with a detailed written data and information request. Response to our request was excellent both by the Police Department and the City’s Fleet Services Section. Our initial meetings and interviews included a broad spectrum of stakeholders including members of City Council, members of Neighborhood Councils, police command staff, police rank and file employees, and Fleet Services staff.
Our work plan included the design of two comprehensive surveys. The first survey was targeted at police officers so that we could develop a thorough understanding of how assigned vehicles are used. The survey was designed to be completed by officers on their in-car computers by connecting to Mercury Associates’ data center over the Internet. The survey, which was kept anonymous in order to encourage honest responses, was distributed electronically to 263 officers and we received responses from 251. This very high response rate produced strong confidence in the statistical validity of survey results. The most significant information and results from the survey are summarized below:
· Twenty-percent of officers reside within city limits, fifty-percent live within 10 miles of city limits, thirty-percent live more than 10 miles away, and ten-percent live more than 20 miles from the city.
· The average one-way distance between respondents’ homes and the city limits is 9.4 miles. The median distance is 7 miles.
· Twenty-four percent of respondents park their assigned police vehicle in their home garage, fifty three-percent park in their driveway, and fourteen percent park on the street.
· When respondents used pool vehicles (before adoption of the current assigned vehicle program) it took an average of 28 minutes to check a vehicle out and load gear and equipment.
· When respondents used pool vehicles they were unavailable an average of 5.6 days per month for a variety of reasons. Changing a car required an average of 25 minutes.
· Eighty-two percent of respondents reported that the condition of their assigned vehicle is much better than pool cars.
· In the past 2 months each respondent made an average of 6 contacts (e.g. assisted in an arrest) outside of normal work hours on their way to and from work/home; the average time spent on these contacts was 36 minutes; forty percent of the contacts were outside the City of Tacoma.
· Ninety-four percent of respondents said they were more productive with an assigned vehicle vs. a pool program.
We also conducted two focus group sessions and a survey of members of Neighborhood Councils. The survey, which members helped design, was sent to 80 individuals and 40 responded. The number and rate of responses provides a respectable level of confidence in the results. The most significant information and results from the survey are summarized below:
· Fifty-three percent of respondents said that Tacoma’s police services were good but needed some improvement and forty-seven percent indicated that services are poor and require much improvement. No respondents said that services were excellent and did not require any improvement.
· Thirty percent of respondents indicated that their knowledge of the assigned vehicle program was good and the rest indicated that it was fair.
· Respondents indicated that the top benefit of the assigned vehicle program was that it allowed officers to respond quickly to emergencies. The benefit that was cited second most often was that the program helped to deter crime.
· Fifty-eight percent of respondents favor assigning vehicles to officers, twenty-six percent were indifferent on this question, and only sixteen percent favored use of pool vehicles.
· Eighty-four percent of respondents favor allowing police officers to take their assigned vehicles home. Fifty percent of these respondents believe that the take-home policy should limit this benefit to officers who live within a certain distance of the city such as 10 miles.
Demands for and Supply of Police Services
In this area of the project we were asked to assess how well Tacoma allocates its police resources, especially personnel and vehicles. Our approach to this question was to examine the average response time to calls for service for each of Tacoma’s police sectors and districts.
The Police Department has organized the city into four sectors, each of which is divided into four districts. The four sectors in Tacoma each have four patrol vehicles on the street at any given time. Sector 1 and Sector 4 also have an additional car due to their large geographical size and configuration. Therefore, Tacoma typically has 18 police vehicles patrolling its streets.
The average response time for the city as a whole during the period that we reviewed (May and June of 2004) was just under 10 minutes. The variation in average response times between districts was relatively small, ranging from a low of 8.5 minutes to a high of 13 minutes. These findings suggest that the way department deploys its manpower and vehicles results in a high and consistent level of service and that no district in Tacoma seems to be under served.
Cost-Benefit Analysis
The main focus of our project for the city was an economic analysis of the costs and benefits of the assigned vehicle program. Our approach to this part of the project followed standard cost-benefit analysis methods, which are well documented in economic literature.
The primary conclusions of our analysis are:
It is far better for the city to assign vehicles to officers than to have them share vehicles from a pool. The equivalent annual savings from our net present value calculation is $1.5 million per year for assigned vs. pool vehicles. The principal reason for the savings is increased officer productivity as a result of not having to check out a pool vehicle and transfer equipment in and out of them each day.
The city is also better off allowing officers to commute in patrol cars and park them at home rather than parking them in a city lot or garage. The annual economic costs of officers taking vehicles home are about $800 per year per vehicle less than the alternative of parking them in a city garage. The difference for the entire fleet of take-home vehicles is about $200,000 per year. Unlike the benefits of assigning a vehicle to each officer, which accrue entirely to the city, only some of the take-home benefits accrue to Tacoma, the rest accrue to the police officers themselves. The fact that the benefits of taking vehicles home are shared jointly by the city and the officers does not reduce the real economic benefits that result from the take-home program. The main reason for this cost difference is that the commuting cost of patrol vehicles is less than the cost of building and operating additional parking places in the city.
The current policy of allowing officers to take police vehicles home provides additional benefits due to officers responding to emerging calls while driving to and from work, responding to calls more quickly, providing citizens with an increased sense of safety by having cars parked in neighborhoods, and better care of police vehicles provided by officers at their homes.
The assigned vehicle program may be producing an unwelcome incentive for police officers to live outside of the city, since there is no charge for commuting and no limit on commuting miles. The city needs to examine and decide how to handle “excess” commuting. Our analysis shows that the break even point for the city to subsidize officers commuting in their vehicles is between 7 and 14 miles one-way based strictly on the financial costs of commuting vs. the financial costs of providing in-city parking.
Recommendations
Our main recommendations related to this project are as follows:
1. The city should continue its policy of assigning vehicles to officers rather than using pool cars.
2. Officers should be allowed to take vehicles home.
3. The city should examine its policy on subsidizing commuting. This policy should not, however, focus entirely on financial issues and should recognize that officers provide services while commuting to and from work that benefit society as a whole.
4. While no evidence of abuse was found, the city needs to be sensitive to perceptions that officers could be unreasonably using police vehicles for personal reasons. Procedures to enforce appropriate policies need to be routinely examined to ensure that they are working.
5. The analysis of how the Police department allocates its personnel and vehicles to meet the demands for police services revealed no particular problems or disparities among districts. Nevertheless, because demands are always shifting, the department needs to exert constant vigilance and scrutiny of its polices and practices to ensure that the citizens of Tacoma are well served.
Good link, Gina.
ReplyDelete"The primary conclusions of our analysis are:
ReplyDelete1.It is far better for the city to assign vehicles to officers than to have them share vehicles from a pool.
The principal reason for the savings is increased officer productivity as a result of not having to check out a pool vehicle and transfer equipment in and out of them each day."
No one ever suggested we take away their assigned vehicles and use a smaller pool of vehicles among all the Officers.
They can use their dedicated autos, leave their equipment in them, but park them within the City limits when off shift.
This is known as a "compromise".
It would save significant wear and tear on the vehicles, as well as gasoline savings, yet still provide the benefits of an assigned car in terms of upkeep, appearance, and personal responsibility.
Furthermore, a Cop is a Cop no matter what they are driving. If they must act in an official capacity while traveling to or from the City for work, they have that authority even without the car.
Also, the info presented from the Neighborhood Councils are based upon 20 individual responses.
Hardly a statistically significant population sample size to draw conclusions from.
Especially in a large City with 263 Officers.
Of course, you also need to factor in the crime rate and the number of responses made by NA police both on and off duty. Tacoma is a much larger city than New Albany.
ReplyDeleteHere's a link showing the Tacoma crime statistics as of 2004:
http://tacoma.areaconnect.com/crime1.htm
Be sure to do the little toggle button comparison chart at the top of the page and compare New Albany to Tacoma. The per-capita crime rate exceeds New Albany in all areas except murder.
However, the bottom line for me is this: wouldn't it be great if we could do an impartial cost benefit analysis like Tacoma's, instead of the matter being politicized and decided upon based on opinion rather than factual info?
knighttrain, I was told the exact same thing by a councilperson--NOT Steve Price, nor one of the "Gang of Four"--that budget issues pertaining to police are backed off from because of the negative political impact.
ReplyDeleteIf indeed the police department has 69 vehicles assigned to it, knighttrain, what is the makeup of that fleet? How many are patrol vehicles, command vehicles, SWAT or other tactical vehicles, etc?
ReplyDeleteThanks for all your input, Ali.
ReplyDeleteNope. Your view is appreciated by me. You have insight from your previous position and possibly other sources that I consider valuable. Does not mean that I will not challenge your conclusions at times though. Fair enough? I bet that we will agree far more than we will ever disagree.
ReplyDeletePolice issues aren't the only budget items that are avoided. Any issue that requires expenditure or even a minute adjustment to taxes or rates is met with cowardice. The Council continuously underfunds city needs and then refuses to take responsiblity for the outcome.
ReplyDeleteSewer rates are being reviewed now because the council chose to ignore the initial financial estimates and took a politically safer course. They were told before the EPA mandated sewer improvemements ever started that a rate increase of over 60% would be necessary to cover project expenses. However, when given an opportunity to vote for a smaller increase, the supposed financial watchdogs jumped at the chance with few, if any legitimate questions as to how or why the amount necessary magically changed over the course of a month or two.
The same is true of the stormwater mandate. Initial estimates showed that an interim residential rate of $3.00 per household would cover expenses. Instead, they voted for $2.00, even as city officials were telling them that it would create a shortfall. Now, they're having to review the fee again because the shortfall they ignored is biting them.
There's much more involved in financial stewardship than simply avoiding spending money. The cost of providing each service should be reviewed on a regular basis and rates adjusted to reflect changes in those costs. It's simply irresponsible to pretend that costs don't increase.
Even if service levels stay the same, the cost of providing services increases every year. If rates and taxes don't increase at a matching rate, the city's ability to provide services is diminished. When those inflation-based increases are coupled with reductions in disbursements from federal and state controlled budgets (who are using our money to cover their own shortfalls), the result is that New Albany has less spending power and higher costs every year.
It's important to keep in mind that the word "services" does not, in this case, refer to some outlandish entitlement scheme but to bare bones essentials like road maintenance and law and code enforcement. Each time a council person votes against a reasonable increase to score cheap political points, the city falls further behind in it's ability to maintain the status quo, let alone to make service improvements.
A politician interested in improving the city will tell you that. One who thinks their holding an individual office is more important than the overall health of the city won't.
All4Word,
ReplyDeleteI was re-reading your post to me under the "Price is wrong". Although I have already posted a response there, I do have a question. You said:
"The cops who leave the city are contributing to the costs today, where they weren't a few years ago. What more do you want in the way of discussion?
What are they contibuting? Is it required? How is documented?
Are the above fair points of discussion? I am sure this was presented at a council meeting but as you already know.....
Nope. At least two reasons why not.
ReplyDelete1. I am sure the chief is very busy.
2. I am trying to make a point. If you do not know the answer to this question(and others) how can you make an informed opinion?
I have seen very little of actual numbers presented on this issue. I don't think All4 is lying but I strongly believe that 2 or more people can look at a set of facts and reach totally different conclusions. Contrary to what is believed on another blog, I do not know All4 that well and I prefer to reach my own conclusions.
Here is the letter that Officer Todd Bailey wrote to the Tribune the last time this issue came up with the city council.
ReplyDeleteThat was last November.
Dear Editor:
For the past few years certain members of the New Albany City Council have felt it necessary to discuss at agonizing length gasoline consumption and use for the city's take home car fleet, particularly the police department's. This, of course, has sparked many related and unrelated debates within the council and the community in general.
Mayor James Garner and Chief of Police Merle Harl identified the problem and have implemented gas saving programs that have truly helped with this matter. It is no illusion that fuel prices have risen significantly. A conservative estimate would show the cost increase to be around 40 percent over the past few years. The mayor and chief identified this early on and understanding the need for fiscal responsibility and public safety, took several cost saving measures.
One, that police officers who live beyond the city limit contribute fuel in the amount of either 10 or 20 gallons per month. This move in itself more than covered the costs of officers taking their vehicles home. Two, that officers be restricted to driving the vehicles for work related tasks only and no private or "off duty" driving. These are ideas that most if not all police officers gladly support because they too want to help the community with any financial problems.
You may ask why we have vehicles assigned to individuals and why they take them home? The reason is for the same reason the mayor and chief implemented the money saving measure I mentioned previously, fiscal responsibility and public safety. It is simply less expensive to have a fleet of vehicles assigned to individuals rather than fleets of pool cars running 24 hours per day seven days per week. In fact, the savings are significant to that point that I doubt the city could afford to have a 24/7 non-assigned fleet. With regard to public safey, the more police cars on the street, the more visibility, the less crime.
Additionally, and even more confusing, officers providing traffic assistance for church traffic on Sunday mornings has been attacked by the same councilmen. This assistance costs the city nothing as the church pays completely for the service including the gasoline. Without these officers assistance on Sunday morning, traffic would be gridlocked on Charlestown Road.
The councilmen who agonizingly debate the so-called "fuel problem" or "take home car issue" are the real failure. These are the same people who for years have stifled progress in this community.
I am ashamed and embarrassed for members of the New Albany City Council such as Larry Kochert (4th District) who have served for so long and have accomplished so little. Why are Kochert and other council members dwelling on this fuel matter that has already been solved? A personal agenda? Incompetence? Who knows. What is known is that Kochert is a large part of the problem. But with all problems, we have the ability to solve them. When it comes time to vote again, (2007) please exercise your right and vote Kochert back to a non-public life.
As you have probably suspected by now, yes, I'm a New Albany Police Officer.
I chose this career and city because I am genuinely concerned about the welfare of the people. I grew up in this city and proudly serve its citizens. It's time for council members to set aside their agendas and care about this community too.
For the record, there are members of the New Albany City Council who are doing positive things for the community. Councilmen Crump, Messer, Gahan and Blevins have all acted in a responsible manner throughout this matter.
Todd Bailey
New Albany
If you want to do surveys, go to the neighborhoods where these officers live and ask those living there if the mere presense of a patrol car is a comfort or a cause for concern?
ReplyDeleteI daresay the answer would be one of appreciation regardless of what jurisdiction the officer was from!
There is a policeman from Lanesville living right around the corner from me and just having a fully marked vehicle sitting there dramatically affects the unsavory foot traffic in my neighborhood.
We care not that he isn't one of ours. He is still an officer of the law and we trust that he would act accordingly if needed!
And now for a rant.....WOULD YOU ALL PLEASE, (former reporters, educated folks, uneducated folks, and just plain folks) QUIT USING THE TERM "COPS" when discussing the police department! We aren't 8 year olds playing in the backyard and this ain't Al Capone's Chicago!
The slang is disrespectful, undignified, and degrading not only to the police department but to those who use it as well!!
Now, chaw on that cud for awhile!
As is "policeman" Lloyd! In formal (and often on the blogs) writing, I frequently say "law enforcement" or "police officers," but I do see your point. I also will probably continue to use cops, as in friendly conversation I haven't found them to be offended by the term. I will admit that I consider "cops" to be acceptable in certain situations and inappropriate in others.
ReplyDeleteToday is National Law Enforcement Memorial Day and I, like many others, honored the sacrifice of our law enforcement officers by marking my business with blue ribbons in memoriam. Now, since I fall into three of the four categories you are addressing, I guess you meant me, but disrespect is the furthest thing from my mind.
Thanks for the reminder that not everyone shares that respect and that "cop" can be considered as patronizing.
Actually my comments were not directed at any one individual but rather a much broader audience.
ReplyDeleteI find it ludicrous that we speak loudly and often of raising the bar and yet settle for status quo in public discourse. I see and hear it daily in newsprint, on broadcasts, throughout the blogisphere, and it drives me to distraction.
Albeit a throwback to my conservative upbringing and at the risk of this sounding like a moral judgement, I will concede that respect for an individual in a given office is earned, but respect for the institution of that office is vital for a civil society. Those who follow us will act and react as we do, not as we say!
As has been stated elsewhere,"Just my opinion" with no angst intended.
I have just come from a pleasant 25 minute talk at police HQ with Chief Harl. I'd gone down there to drop off my undercover homework assignment to the detectives and decided to pop in on the chief and talk about this discussion we've been having here the last few days. I would encourage any curious citizen to do the same...his door is "always open" and I think he means it. I told Chief we'd been discussing the issue of take home police cars and he did seem perplexed that the city council was STILL debating this issue and hoped he'd been able to make the case for the policy he has. I mentioned the need to know if any police car were subject to "excess commuting" and to shape a policy to address that, as well as the need to periodically do a cost/benefit analysis of things like this. He said there were about 70 police cars with 12-14 deployed at any given time normally. They were adding two bike "cops" soon to increase neigborhood policing...hooray there. I suggested a mounted patrol and chiefs eyes lit up. Some day when heritage tourism matters here and we have parades and crowds think how nice it would be to have a 4 horse mounted unit...like in the ole days. So keep your eyes peeled for a old stable we could use. Well, tht's how it ended, my talk with chief Harl...he's awful nice to talk, check 'em out sometime.
ReplyDeleteps...don't know if I like being called "bulldog Coyle"
ReplyDeleteThanks for the report.
ReplyDeleteThis whole police car drama is reminiscent of Rovian politics-- keep eyes off the prize with a minor impact issue while more important, pragmatic matters fly under radar. When I read in the paper that the Council doesn't have time to address a three-years-late, state mandated redistricting but apparently has time to rehash this particular non-debate, I laughed out loud.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, I'm pretty sure my grandma can get a tax abatement to hire out her yard maintenance.