Chief Ramey's Memo To Mayor Felinton

Office of the Chief of Police

Huntington Police Department
675 10th Street - Zip 25701
P.O. Box 1659-Zip 25717
Chief Gordon Ramey II (304) 696-5510 - P&~ 696-
TO: Mayor David Felinton
FROM: Gordon Ramey, Chief of Police
DATE Junc 19. 2001
SUBJECT: Five Percent Police Budset Reduction

On Friday, June 22~, Huntington City Council will conduct their Work Session to discuss issues for the City Council Meeting scheduled for Monday, Juno 25th. At the work session, Council will decide Whether to place on the Council Meeting's Agenda the reduction of the 2001-2002 fiscal year budget by five percent (5%).

The purpose of this memo is to advise you how detrimental this action would be to the Huntington Police Department. This funding loss would eliminate our agency's ability to prevent crime, investigate crime, and to administer the Police Department's functions to the citizens of Huntington.

A reduction of HPD's budget by five percent is $396,090. Officers affected by layoffs cost the City an average of $34,678 to S42,229 each; these figures include PERS, Unemployment, Workers Compensation, Social Security, and clothing allowance. (This dollar range is based on officers' status as married or single on our health insurance program.) This translates to a loss of between 10 and 12 officers if a 5% budget reduction is enacted. This situation becomes even more critical when combined with the S 100,000 loss in the overtime account. We would be unable to provide the minimal service that our citizens expect for their tax dollar, from a Class 1 city.

The Jean Dean Public Safety Building would have to close during evening, weekend, and midnight shift hours. Auxiliary programs such as Safety Town, Horse Patrols, the middle and high School Resource Officers, Police Explorers, and the Traffic Unit would have to be eliminated in order to provide basic staffing of patrol. Serious long-term effects would be created due to the fact that the WV State Police Academy is very limited on training positions and it takes a long period of time to train recruits after their graduation. it would be years before these positions could be recovered if funding becomes available at a later time.

Restrictions on the type of calls answered would be implemented and delays in police response times would be commonplace. Personnel for special events, i.e., parades, funerals, sporting events, etc.) could not be obtained. Our citizenry would be aware immediately that the level of police service to which they are accustomed would no longer be available.

I was hired as a professional Chief and I must be given the financial backing to accomplish goals and objectives. The police budget has already been painfully reduced. I appreciate the City's financial dilemma but the overall budget cannot be balanced by more cuts to the Police without long-term ramifications to the safety of our citizens.