Thanks, S. In response to your question, my guess is that the conjoined council members would not be disturbed by the article, primarily because they'd refuse to read it.
Study recommends allowing Cape Coral officers be allowed to take police vehicles home, in the News-Press of Ft. Myers, Florida.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
When I interned with the Salem PD (no jokes, please) they had the same issue...people were complaining about the cost of officers taking their cars home. SPD did a cost-benefit analysis and showed it was much less expensive to just allow officers to keep their cars at the end of a shift, plus it had the added benefit that officers, if called at home, would be able to react much faster with their gear stored in their car.
A bit of a no-brainer. Even the Salem City Council understood that and put the issue to rest.
I believe Louisville police require that you live in Jefferson county.
How do you feel about paying for gas a maintenance for a New Albany Police officer that lives 46 miles from here?
Actually, per the LMPD website, there is no residency requirement. Every department is different. I know officers in the Seymour PD that live in Salem and take their cars home.
So I guess, Pete, in answer to your question I don't have a big issue with it.
I'm for take home cars. I do think there needs to be a formal program in place that identifies allowable take home usage and some form of user reimbursement for gas and maintenance. The most cumbersome would be a log system but it would also be the fairest. Pay for private mileage used.
My sentiments parallel pete's.
I have been to enough council meetings were Detective Haub is requesting additional funds to hire more police officers.
It is my understanding that the majority of police officers live outside of city limits. The take home car policy is an incentive for police officers to live elsewhere. At one council meeting there was an officer that stated he moved to Elizabeth because he felt New Albany was too unsafe for him and his family.
Getting rid of the take home care policy might make a difference with New Albany’s police officers willingness not to live in New Albany, were under their own admission they feel the city is unsafe and police are much needed.
What another officers said, at one of those council meetings, is that Indiana State law prohibits residency requirements, so requiring officers to live in the city, who are hired to protect us, is out of the question, but New Albany doesn’t have to subsidizing some officers’ long commutes.
The no-brainer is Salem is not New Albany and doesn't come close to dealing with all the crime and needs we deal with here. I have been wondering for a time now how many officers actually live here in city limits. I know of Detective’s Haub, Bailey, and Humphrey. And there is Jack Messer, and only one other that I know of. The latter I met when he was making a police report for me after a break-in.
As of now, New Albany can’t afford to have it both ways.
Really? Salem doesn't have as much crime as New Albany?
Of course they don't, Jameson. Salem is also a much poorer town, smaller tax base, less industry = less taxes to fund police departments. Yet they still consider the take-home car policy advantageous enough (as study after study has shown) to make sure it's funded.
I like IAH's idea, actually. Have the out-of-county officers pay for mileage from the county line to their homes. Floyd County isn't that big, I can leave my house and be out of Floyd County in a matter of minutes, so it might be a very small charge for some.
Of course, many departments use a take-home car policy as an incentive to recruit good officers, we lose that advantage to many other cities if we start charging officers for gas.
If our council felt it necessary to levy some amount for personal use, I could support that concept. However, under the concept of doing things for the greater good, I am perfectly comfortable with knowing that these vehicles are somewhere other than a parking lot at the station. If most people are like me, seeing a police car of any kind (or municipality) is likely to be a deterrent to breaking even the smallest traffic law. If having a New Albany police car in a Lanesville neighborhood deters even the smallest crime, then it benefits all of us in the region. Taxes may stop at the city limits, but the impact of what we do in New Albany affects the residents of Salem, Palmyra, Nabb and even Louisville. This is big picture stuff, people. Sadly, there are too many small picture folks around here and we all suffer when they are able to thwart that which benefits us all. You say Kentuckiana, I say Indiucky. Either way, we're all in this together. (My apologies to the writers of "High School Musical".)
I really wish take home cars were not an issue for New Albany but that's not the reality.
The big picture is these cars and officers are needed here in New Albany more than they are needed in my parent’s neighborhood in the Knobs, on Old Vincennes Rd, in the neighborhood across from Wolfe Lake, in Elizabeth, or any other place I see New Albany police cruisers parked in driveways not located in New Albany. If we didn't have the crime here in New Albany, that we do have, I wouldn't care, but just ask Detective Haub about crime statistics, and why New Albany Police need more officers.
The funny thing about big picture perspective is New Albany is helping other communities, but no other communities’ officers live here to help us.
If we had all 53 to 55 officers living in the city I think it would make a huge dent in our higher than average crime rate, but Indiana law says otherwise. Not subsiding out of city officer's commute may change that, thereby making New Albany a better place to live and work, and in the long run, or “big picture,” diminishing the need for officers to live here.
And if a take home car policy is what attracts a certain kind of officer, it's not the kind needed here in New Albany.
And I can only speak for officers Haub and Bailey, who both live here in the city, that they are the kind of officers I want.
I'm not sure that you could do just out of county officers. Beyond just the legal aspect, I think fairness would mandate the same policy for all. That's why I suggested the log system. The more miles that the vehicle is driven on off duty time, the more the officer pays. Those that live in New Albany would pay less than one that lived in Elizabeth, just driving to and from work. Log the odometer after your shift and again at the beginning of your next shift.
Not sure what the mileage fee should be but at a minimum I would suggest $.15/mile, adjusted periodically. This fee would barely(if it does)cover the gas cost. I could live with that for the other benefits that take home cars bring to the community.
I am not stuck on my "plan" but there does need to be a formal policy. I am stuck on that.
Sounds like a worthy plan Mark, now for the right people to pick up on it.
I lived in Sellersburg, a NA policeman lived down the street; when the shift was over the car went in the garage - so a neighborhood presence wasn't even felt. The council was talking about charging$75/ month, if I'm not mistaken; I would pay twice that for a company car. No insurance, no gas, no maintenance and no payments - not a bad deal. I pay to drive to work - why should they be excluded?
Post a Comment