The civilian board that is responsible for disciplining Springfield, Massachusetts police officers has no funding in the city budget proposed by Mayor Domenic Sarno.
At a sparsely attended hearing to review the spending requests of individual municipal departments, City Councilor Zaida Govan questioned the lack of a line item in the police department’s budget for the Board of Police Commissioners.
“I’m assuming that going forward they are going to have some sort of a budget,” Govan said. “Where is it coming from?”
Chief Administration and Finance Officer T.J. Plante said the civilian police commission is being treated the same as other voluntary advisory bodies in municipal government. For example, he said, if the Parks Commission needs money for something it can request it from the Parks Department’s budget, or if the Traffic Commission needs money it asks the Department of Public Works.
“We’ve approached the Board of Police Commissioners the same way – if there is a need they’ll request it and we will fund the needs as they request them,” Plante said.
City Councilor Justin Hurst said it appears the five-member board – that the Council won a lawsuit against Sarno to bring into being – is being set up to fail.
“We need to look at this Board of Police Commissioner a tad bit different than the Parks Commission,” Hurst said. “We have to do better. We owe it to the residents to do better. We fought darn hard for this police commission and nobody should accept where we are at right now.”
The civilian board is part of the reforming of the Springfield Police Department required by a consent decree with the U.S. Department of Justice. But in the year since the agreement took effect, the board has been slow to get up to speed. It is just now finishing a manual that spells out its policies and procedures.
In meetings with City Councilors last year, some of the board members complained about a lack of support from the city administration. But, Plante said the commissioners have not submitted any formal requests for funding.
“All the budget requests ultimately end up with me to discuss with the mayor for appropriations,” Plante said.
The budget proposed for the police department totals almost $58 million. It funds 600 fulltime positions – 514 of which are police officers. There are currently 31 vacancies. Last month, the police academy graduated 25 new cops.
As more-and-more veteran officers retire, the Springfield Police Department finds itself unable to keep up with staff attrition, said Deputy Chief Steven Kent.
“Our problems are not unique to the city of Springfield,” Kent said. “Recruitment and retention is the number one issue in law enforcement right now.”
The City Council will continue its review of Sarno’s proposed $878 million budget with public hearings scheduled away from City Hall on June 7, 8, and 15th.
A vote by the full Council on the budget is expected at a special meeting scheduled for June 20th.
Under the city charter, the Council has the authority only to cut the spending recommended by the mayor.
The new fiscal year begins July 1st.
