Report suggests ways Pointes could save money
by combining five departments into one

By K. Michelle Moran
C & G Staff Writer

GROSSE POINTE PARK — Any questions about whether the Pointes are seriously considering consolidation were erased when Park Public Safety Chief David Hiller shared a PowerPoint presentation on public safety consolidation during the March 8 City Council meeting.

The report — prepared for the cities by the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, said City Manager Dale Krajniak — shows how the cities could cut costs while maintaining and possibly enhancing service, largely by eliminating redundancy and reducing the number of administrators needed to run five separate departments.

“This is just an idea. It’s a concept,” Hiller told the council. “But as (a Park resident) … I can tell you, I would be comfortable with it.”

With city revenues plummeting from lower property taxes, state-shared revenue and investment returns, coupled with soaring health care and energy costs, Hiller said the time may be right to create one department from the five. The report projected a roughly 30 percent drop in revenue from property taxes alone for Southeast Michigan in the period of 2009-11.

“We have to determine how we can better serve with less money,” Hiller said. “The economic times are killing us.”

According to the report, the cities collectively have their own dispatchers, as well as 160 officers and 11 fire specialists covering 10.8 square miles and a population of 48,290. The recommended number of officers is 1.8-2 per 1,000 residents, and Hiller said the Pointes now have a ratio of 3.3-to-1,000. Under a consolidated department, Hiller said, the cities could operate a single dispatch center with three to four dispatchers on duty at all times, reducing the total number of dispatchers from 30 to 21. Although it would cost an estimated $250,000-$300,000 for a new dispatch center, he said, the departments would need to upgrade their equipment in the next few years anyway.

In addition, there are five Public Safety directors, two deputy directors and six officers who handle various administrative responsibilities among the departments. The report recommends reducing administration from 13 to eight, leaving the five cities with a single director, two deputy directors and five officers who would handle records, fire inspections and other tasks.

The report also calls for a reduction in the detective bureau from 12 to nine officers, who would work a seven-day schedule instead of a weekday schedule to provide more coverage and less need for overtime requests for weekend warrants and arrests. The cities now have two lieutenants, four sergeants and six detectives. The study suggests a combined Public Safety Department could have one lieutenant, two sergeants and six detectives.

Overall, the study suggests that the cities could trim personnel mainly through attrition as veterans retire, eventually cutting salaried officers by as much as 20-25 percent.

“There’s redundancy, and that’s what we need to eliminate without reducing the level of service,” Hiller said.

The cities currently have 137 officers assigned to road patrol, with up to 32 of those on the road at any time — as many as 10 of whom are supervisors. This plan would have 107 officers assigned to road patrol, creating a potential for 25 cars covering the whole area. The cities could add a seven-person traffic unit with one supervisor and six officers to create greater road coverage.

But Farms Public Safety Director Daniel Jensen said the report’s assertion that the cities could provide the same service with less people isn’t true. Jensen said residents wouldn’t get the personal service they’ve become accustomed to from officers they know, and he said response time would likely suffer.

“Now is not the time to consolidate or do the same with less (officers),” Jensen said. “We need to explore other opportunities (to save money). … I see no benefit to the residents of Grosse Pointe Farms to go to a combined department — I see only problems.”

Jensen said his department has been able to trim its budget through attrition by moving officers to different positions and “maintaining the same shift strength.” Given that four of the five Pointes border Detroit — a city with a much higher crime rate than the Pointes, and one that has felt the economic hardship of recent years much more keenly — Jensen fears the Pointes could experience more crime.

“Good police work is road strength, and the No. 1 prevention tool is visibility,” he said.

If Farms residents decide they want a combined Public Safety Department, Jensen said his department would respond to their wishes, but he said the plan under consideration wouldn’t result in a savings for the Farms.

As to the higher-than-average ratio of officers to residents, Jensen said that’s one of the things for which taxpayers pay.

“There isn’t a whole lot of waste (now),” Jensen argued, noting that the cities already have a mutual aid agreement.

Each city offers EMS services differently, with some providing in-house trained personnel and others contracting those services out. The report suggests looking at contracting out EMS services.

As to costly fire equipment, the cities now have eight fire engines and three aerial trucks. Under the study’s proposal, there would be three fire stations, not five, with two fire engines and an aerial truck in the Park, two engines and an aerial in the Woods, and a single engine and aerial truck in the Farms, thus covering both ends of the community and its center. Each station would have two non-fully cross-trained personnel manning it over the course of a 12-hour shift, for a total of six per shift.

Michigan Act 57 of 1988 enables cities to create an authority to govern emergency services, and Hiller said one of the things the city councils would need to do to get started is create a public safety authority with its own articles of incorporation that would govern the combined department. Existing labor contracts would be honored until they expired, after which the authority could negotiate a new, joint agreement.

“We truly believe layoffs will not be necessary as staffing reductions can be reached through attrition,” the report states. Hiller said that attrition would likely occur over the next two to three years.

The cities could distribute the costs of operating a single public safety department in a number of ways, including by population or by a separate public safety millage, Hiller said. He said it would be up to the councils to determine how the authority would be funded.

Mayor Palmer Heenan said educating the public will be crucial if the cities go forward with this proposal. He remembers the challenges the Park faced when it went from separate Fire and Police departments to a Public Safety Department more than two decades ago.

“It was just as impossible with police and fire 25 years ago,” Heenan said. “(People) thought we were dumb to get rid of the Fire Department. … And yet we got a much better fireperson (from a public safety officer) than we did before.”

Krajniak said the Park alone could easily save more than $1 million a year from consolidation. Public safety accounts for about 60 percent of the city’s budget, he said.

“For 20 years, many of us have talked about consolidation. … I guess the difference now is economics,” said City Council member Daniel Clark, noting greater openness to the idea than in the past. Hiller said the City, Park, Shores and Woods have expressed interest in some type of consolidation recently.

And at least one Park resident is in favor of the proposal.

“This is a great idea,” M.T. “Tim” Prophit said after hearing the presentation.

As a central location and one of the few large parcels available in the Pointes, Farms-owned property at Mack and Moross was cited by Hiller as a possible location for a new main public safety department building for all of the Pointes. Any such proposal would obviously require approval from the Farms City Council first, though.

Farms City Manager Shane Reeside acknowledged that the cities are discussing ways to work together, and public safety is just one possible area of further cooperation.

“The cities are looking at ways we can share services that make sense to share,” Reeside said. “But you have to look at its merits. The concern is, we don’t want to sacrifice the level of service in the process.”

Even if all of the cities agree on a plan, Hiller said, it would still take at least two years to implement. He said the cities should consider forming operations, finance and legal committees to explore this issue further and move forward with the proposal.

“I’m really excited about this, because I think it’s the future (for Grosse Pointe public safety),” Hiller said. “We’ll see where it goes.”

You can reach Staff Writer K. Michelle Moran at kmoran@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1047.