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Monday, March 26, 2001
Crime district cutbacks
Board to present choice to council
By Mary Moreno
Caller-Times
Nelda Chapa and Diana Alvarado are worried they might lose their jobs at the police department. The women work in the property recovery unit funded by the Crime Control and Prevention District. They could be among 25 civilian employees eliminated because of budget shortfalls.
"They made the mistake, but now we have to pay for it," Alvarado said.
When the Crime Control and Prevention District plan was drafted in 1997, the Corpus Christi Police Department stood to gain 50 new police officers and 25 civilian support personnel. But revenue brought in by the one-eighth cent sales tax increase has been less than predicted. Now the city council must decide if the funds will be used for 50 officers or 40 officers and 13 civilians. The former would mean dismissing all 25 support personnel, the latter would cost 12 their jobs.
Police Chief Pete Alvarez said he supports both plans, but that cutting all 25 support personnel would set the department back.
"It's like having a beautiful table then cutting its legs off," he said. "We want to build on what we have, not take away from it."
The Crime Control and Prevention District board earlier this month voted unanimously to present the 50-officer plan to the City Council, although it had voted in May for the 40-officer plan. The council could still opt for the 40-officer plan. The board will meet with the council Tuesday.
Funding all 50 officers and 25 civilians would cause a deficit of more than $1 million for the district.
"I hate to lose those 12 people, but if I have to lose personnel, I'd rather lose 12 than 25," Alvarez said. "I'd rather not get 10 people that never existed, than to let go 25 people we already have."
In 1998 the International Association of Chiefs of Police studied the police department's operations, and made more than 150 recommendations. The report called for increasing civilian staff from 187 to 209, but didn't recommend increasing the number of police officers.
The city could choose to fund the positions from its general fund, but officials have said doing so is unlikely given the city's budget crunch. The positions eliminated would be 10 public safety dispatchers, four crime scene technicians, three office assistants in the pawn shop detail, two office assistants in the telephone reporting unit, two office assistants in Central Records, a systems coordinator, computer operator, systems analyst and a legal adviser. Board members and city officials have said they hope no one will have to be fired and that the positions can be eliminated through attrition.
Police officials said the public, not just the department, would feel the cuts. Among the divisions that would be cut is the pawn shop unit, which matches pawned items with items reported stolen. Police Cmdr. U.B. Alvarado said that before the district funded three office clerks, police officers input serial numbers of pawn tickets and stayed months behind. With the clerks, the unit went from recovering about $60,000 in stolen property a year to more than $328,000 in 2000, he said.
"We have never been as successful in recovering stolen items as we have in the past year and a half," Alvarado said. "We are going to be terribly impacted by their removal because we will have to use police (officers), taking them away from their investigations."
The communications division would lose the most if the cuts occurred. Ten dispatcher positions would be cut. Assistant Chief Ken Bung said dispatchers are vital to police operations because they give officers background information on suspects, addresses, link officers to other officers and take the public's calls for help.
"We need more than what we've got," Bung said. "We're not saying it's going to quit if these people go away, but its going to affect its availability. Everything that happens on the street comes through this system. If you start to diminish the efficiency of that, you start diminishing the efficiency of (police officers)."
Staff writer Mary Moreno can be reached at 886-3774 or by e-mail at morenom@caller.com
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