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Management and Operations Study of the Police Department

CITY OF SPRINGDALE, ARKANSAS

FINAL REPORT

201 San Antonio Circle, Suite 148Mountain View, CA 94040

650.858.0507

August 28, 2012

TABLE OF CONTENTS

August 28, 2012

1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1

2 OVERVIEW OF GENERAL FUNCTIONS AND MANAGEMENT OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT

3

3 EVALUATION OF THE PATROL DIVISION 19

4 EVALUATION OF THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION 65

5 EVALUATION OF THE SERVICES DIVISION 72

6 EVALUATION OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION 78

APPENDIX A – PROFILE OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENT 86

APPENDIX B – SUMMARY OF THE EMPLOYEE SURVEY 101

CITY OF SPRINGDALE, ARKANSASManagement and Operations Study of the Police Department

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In March 2012 the Matrix Consulting Group began the project to evaluate the

Springdale Police Department and the Fire Department (evaluated in a separate report).

Introductory meetings and most of the interviews, data collection, employee surveys

and analysis was conducted from March through May 2012.

The project team conducted interviews of over 40 members of the Department

and collected data relevant to this study to analyze the major service areas and

Department tasks. In this report recommendations are only made for areas the project

team has identified as areas where a change should be made to improve function,

practice or efficiency (either cost efficiency or process efficiency).

This report is divided into the following chapters:

• Overview of General Functions and Management of the Police Department

• Evaluation of the Patrol Division

• Evaluation of the Criminal Investigations Division

• Evaluation of the Services Division

• Evaluation of the Administrative Division

Several recommendations and/or improvement opportunities are provided at the

end of the sections within the chapters; all of these recommendations are summarized

in the following table.

Recommendations

Chapter 2 – Overview of General Functions and Management of the Police DepartmentReview the Department’s mission, vision and values statement within the next 18 months, using a representative cross-section of Department employees. Page 8Each Department manager should hold regular (weekly, bi-monthly) staff meetings with his/her direct reports. Page 8

Matrix Consulting Group Page 1


RecommendationsEstablish the compensation for Police Department employees at or above the average pay rates of the three surrounding Cities in an effort to keep a high quality workforce and reduce the attrition rate. Page 16Review the Officer, Dispatcher and Jailer positions to determine specific steps that can improve retaining high quality employees in these positions. Page 16Establish pay equity between Police Department positions and Fire Department positions based on job function and responsibility; Police Sergeants to Fire Captains; Police Lieutenants to Fire Battalion Chiefs; and Police Captains to Fire Division Chiefs. Page 16

Chapter 3 – Patrol DivisionEliminate the “points” system for Patrol Officers as it currently exists. 0Establish a City goal of an overall average time ratio of 60% committed and 40% uncommitted time for field Patrol services. Page 60Establish a Department goal to maintain a minimum 30% uncommitted time percentage for each four hour time period of the day. Page 60Semi-annually review patrol staff workload for each four hour time block to determine if some patrol staff should be redeployed to busier hours of the day; or if resources from other work units should be redeployed to Patrol. Page 60Adopt a process to enhance delivery of patrol services during the periods when uncommitted time is available. The Captain, Lieutenants and Sergeants should coordinate the development of plans that identify specific tasks/projects that can be worked on or accomplished when uncommitted time is available during a shift. Page 60Provide Patrol field supervision of two Sergeants per shift. Page 61End the practice of providing funeral or business escorts. Page 64Use the CAD system, or develop another methodology, to track Traffic Officer and Traffic Accident Investigators’ assignments. Page 64

Chapter 5 – Services DivisionAdd two-three Jailer positions to adequately staff the Jail with two Jailers 24/7. Page 78Conduct sample audits of the property/evidence room annually or every six months. Page 78Convert the Fleet Sergeant position to a civilian staff position. Page 78

Chapter 6 – Administrative DivisionAdd three Dispatcher positions to adequately staff the Dispatch Center with four positions 24/7. Page 82

The recommendations have greater detail provided within the specific Chapter of

the report.



2. OVERVIEW OF GENERAL FUNCTIONS AND MANAGEMENT OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENTThe Springdale Police Department provides a wide range of law enforcement

services for approximately 70,000 residents, covering approximately 42 square miles.

From 2000 to 2010 Springdale’s population grew from 45,798 to 69,797 according to

the U.S. Census Bureau, an increase of 52% in the ten year span.

To provide law enforcement services in Springdale, the Police Department

managers share responsibilities for field patrol services, investigations, support services

and administrative services between the four Captains. The following sections provide

a summary of the organization, patrol, and staffing levels of the SPD.

The police department has a total of 125 sworn and 48 civilian positions

authorized and budgeted positions (full-time equivalents or FTEs). Employees are

deployed in the following areas as shown below:

Division Authorized Positions Vacant PositionsSworn Civilian Sworn Civilian

Office of the Chief 1 1Administration 11 24 3Service 4 18Patrol 84 3 3C.I.D. (Investigations) 25 2Total 125 48 3 3

The Springdale Police Department has 173 budgeted “Full Time Equivalent”

(FTE) positions – this includes 125 regular sworn positions and 48 civilian personnel.

The vacant positions are three Officers in Patrol and three Dispatchers.



(1) Service Level to the Community.

This project is evaluating the calendar year 2011 data, workload, staffing and

accomplishments. Subsequent sections in this report will analyze and discuss in detail

the workload and performance accomplishments of the Department but at the beginning

of this report there are several accomplishments to comment on and highlight.

The Springdale Police Department has the largest amount of resources assigned

to the Patrol Division and related field services that provide responses to the community

generated calls for service and also pro-active patrol activities. The overall average

response time (from receipt of call to arrival at the scene) to all community generated

calls for service was an impressive 12.9 minutes, and 6.1 minutes to emergency calls

for service.

Springdale PD has several specific community outreach efforts such as

conducting various crime prevention presentations, providing public information at local

events/festivals, National Night Out community events, Neighborhood Watch meetings,

participation/presentations (e.g. Leadership Springdale and “Santa Cop”) and partnering

with the school districts to provide School Resource Officers in the schools. Additionally

the Lieutenant participates in these and other community events and pro-actively

provides members of the media with information about SPD programs/events; in

addition to regular contact with reporters and press releases. These efforts are

commendable and also fairly typical in police agencies that desire to develop and

maintain a good relationship with the local community.

The number of vacancies in Dispatch has been reduced from six a year ago to

having a fully trained staff in the spring of 2012. This is an achievement that takes



significant resources to accomplish. However, with the high attrition rate in Dispatch

this is an area (discussed in a later section) that requires continuing attention to ensure

a sufficient staffing level.

In 2011, and implementation continuing in 2012, the Department dedicated

resources to additional areas to improve efficiency: steps were taken to form an “in-

house” narcotics unit to provide specific enforcement services in Springdale, an Officer

was assigned to serve backlogged Springdale arrest warrants, and additional staff for

patrol and dispatch were hired and trained.

Another significant positive aspect is the number of in-service and special skills

training hours received by Officers and Sergeants – it is higher than normally seen in

most police departments and clear evidence that the Department is committed to

providing high quality training and skills improvement for employees. SPD supervisors

and managers assign staff to attend and also seek to accommodate employees who

desire to avail themselves of training opportunities.

Overall, SPD line level employees and managers alike expressed and exhibited

a high level of commitment to the organization and service to the public. The day to day

dedication of all employees to their job is the primary factor in providing high quality

services to the community.

(2) Management Team, Operations and Organizational Challenges.

The Department is managed by the Police Chief and four Captains; each Captain

is in charge of one of the four Divisions – Patrol Operations, Criminal Investigations,

Services and Administration.



The current police chief assumed command of the Department in December

2005. One of the steps taken during her first year was to identify the Departments

mission and values, they are:

• Mission – We improve the quality of life by building relationships to solve problems and safeguard our community.

• Vision – To be recognized as the most professional, effective, progressive and well-equipped law enforcement agency in the region.

• Values – Integrity, Professionalism, Respect, Teamwork, Accountability

These statements have been disseminated throughout the organization, are

visible throughout the building which serve as reminders to employees and also

members of the community who visit the Department. Clear, succinct and expressed

organizational goals such as these are an important factor in identifying a focus and

direction of the Department to the community and also to employees. The process of

identifying and choosing the goals is just as important as the goals – SPD correctly

included a cross-section of the organization to include all work groups in the process so

that the goals truly reflect all levels of the Department.

It has been approximately six years since these statements were developed and

employees hired since that time did not participate in their development and may not

fully accept them as their own or understand their relevance to daily operations.

Additionally, just 27% of those responding to the employee survey believe that the

Department has a clear direction for the future. Reviewing and updating these goals in

the next 18 months or so is a step that will be important to do to maintain relevancy to

current employees and those hired in the last six years.



One of the items identified in the employee survey and also in over 40 individual

interviews conducted in March and April 2012, is the need for increased communication

within the organization. A desire for increased communication is one of the top issues

in almost every study conducted by the project team as the communication of decisions

and general information easily breaks down in a multi-layered organization and may not

reach everyone. In Springdale, only 37% of those responding to the employee survey

agreed that they are kept informed of the decisions that affect them. One of the

significant issues that directly relates to communication was identified in the employee

interviews is a lack of cooperation and communication among a few members of the

command staff. It was identified as one of the issues that has resulted in a lack of

knowledge at the line level of decisions that have been made; and that the process of

making decisions about minor or significant items can take a longer to accomplish, or

sometimes not resolved, because of a lack of cooperation. Specific examples were only

sometimes mentioned (and not solicited) but this issue was mentioned frequently. The

project team believes this is a current issue and one of the significant organizational

challenges needing additional improvement. In addition to increased cooperation, one

of the ways to improve communication is for command staff to frequently and clearly

communicate with their “direct reports” and require the same of them regarding all

organizational issues. Communicating effectively in police organizations (particularly

due to the 24/7 work schedules) takes a significant amount of time and diligence to

keep all employees reasonably informed in a timely manner of organizational decisions

and general information.



Recommendations:

Review the Department’s mission, vision and values statement within the next 18 months, using a representative cross-section of Department employees.

Each Department manager should hold regular (weekly, bi-monthly) staff meetings with his/her direct reports.

(3) Springdale Has a High Attrition Rate for Some Positions and Additional Strategies Should be Developed to Maintain a High Quality Workforce.

One of the significant factors in the health of an organization is the number of

employees who leave the organization to work elsewhere. A low employee attrition rate

is one indicator that employees are receiving fair compensation, the organization is well

managed and of the general health of the organization. The attrition rate is the

percentage of employees who separate from city employment for any reason

(retirement, resignation, termination, etc.).

Organizations typically will be more productive and efficient when they are able

maintain their high quality employees. A “normal” amount of turnover, or attrition, is

healthy for an organization but excessive attrition over consecutive years is a drain on

resources and an indication that improvements are needed. Police organizations that

successfully train their new employees and also have a low attrition rate will have more

resources that can focus on service delivery rather than in hiring and training new

employees. It can also result in a higher average staffing level in field services work

units, as these units are typically the ones whose staffing level is reduced when an

employee leaves the Department. The next several paragraphs will present the 2009 –

2011 attrition for three key line level positions – Police Officer, Dispatcher and Jailer.

All organizations, public or private, experience attrition and even very good

organizations at times may have a high level of attrition; the goal is to keep the attrition



rate reasonably low over the long term. The attrition rate is one of the two primary

factors that reduce staffing in field services and the skill level of the employees that are

providing the services from the authorized level to the “actual” level – the employee

attrition rate and employee leave time. The following table shows the number of sworn

employees who have separated from Springdale the PD over the last three years.

Police Officer Attrition 2009 - 2011

Calendar Year Number Attrition Rate2009 13 10.4%2010 6 4.8%2011 4 3.2%

Total 23Annual Average 7.7 6.1%

A total of 23 sworn employees separated from the PD. The attrition rate in 2009

of 10.4% is high and at this rate it is difficult to maintain a “normal” staffing level without

the significant use of overtime. An attrition rate at this level over consecutive years will

necessarily result in higher training expenses (initial training for new Officers) and also

puts a strain on existing training resources such as Field Training Officers. However,

there were several unique factors in 2009 that resulted in this high rate – due to budget

reductions the SPD Bomb Squad moved to Bentonville along with the two SPD Officers

and one member of the Department died. The attrition rate in 2010 and 2011 was much

lower and closer to a 4-6% rate that is commonly seen by the project team in police

organizations. Retirements and resignations account for the greatest percentage of the

attrition rate. In Springdale over this three year period the retirements averaged 1.7

sworn employees per year; the resignations varied widely – from nine in 2009 to four in

2010 and three in 2011.



The following table shows the number of Dispatchers who have separated from

Springdale the PD over the last three years.

Dispatcher & Senior Dispatcher Attrition 2009 - 2011



A total of 20 Dispatchers separated from the PD from 2009 – 2011, this is almost

a 100% turnover (22 Dispatch positions) over the three year time period. This is a

significant issue and one that the Department and City should evaluate and take steps

to improve. An attrition rate at this level puts a severe strain on the Department to hire

and train new Dispatchers and also on the remaining Dispatchers who may be required

to work overtime shifts to fill vacant positions. High turnover can also reduce the quality

of overall dispatching services due to employees in training and overall lack of

experience after completion of the initial training program.

The third position that must be filled on each shift it Jailer. The following table

shows the number of Jailers who have separated from the Springdale Police

Department over the last three years.

Jailer Attrition 2009 - 2011





There are a total of 9 Jailer positions and eight Jailers have separated from the

PD from 2009 – 2011, this is an 89% turnover over the three year time period.

However, this position is commonly used as an entry level position by the Jailers to

become an Officer – about 50% of the Jailers who “resign” do so to become SPD

Officers and so remain City employees. There is a significant benefit to this as the

Jailers who become Officers are already familiar with the organization, have determined

that it is a good “fit” for them (and the Department also has the opportunity to evaluate

their performance) and have a higher skill level in some areas than other rookie

Officers.

The Jailer attrition rate is should still be evaluated by the Department and City to

determine if there are reasonable additional steps that can be taken to retain Jailers

who do not become Officers as the high attrition rate puts a strain on the Department to

hire and train new Jailers and also reduces the overall skill level of the staff.

Additionally, when there is a shortage in the Jail during a shift a Patrol Officer is

assigned to work in the Jail, reducing staffing on the streets.

Additional details regarding the recommended staffing level for Police Officer,

Dispatcher and Jailer will be presented in subsequent chapters in this report that

evaluate the Division where these positions are assigned.

Maintaining an attrition rate at an annual 4-6% level for sworn personnel and less

than 15% for Dispatchers (3 separations annually) and Jailers (1-2 separations

annually) will require continual effort by Department management and City

management. Providing a competitive pay and benefits package to attract quality

candidates and successfully assimilating them into the organization are important



factors in attaining the goal of developing high quality long term quality employees.

Once a new Officer or new Dispatcher’s initial training is completed and he/she

completes probation then other factors such as internal working relationships, fair

compensation (having sufficient money to pay monthly bills), organizational

management and overall workplace environment issues become more important

factors. The workplace environment includes the physical items such as the buildings,

vehicles and the equipment used by employees but more importantly the intangible

aspects of the job. These elements include positive working relationships with their

peers, the quality of the employee’s direct supervisor and a feeling of belonging to the

organization. If too many negative factors are present it can lead to serious

consideration of whether or not to change employers. There are a wide variety of

factors involved in keeping high quality employees; four specific employee needs1 have

been identified and are listed here:

• The need for trust – expecting that the agency will deliver on its promises, be open and honest in its communication, invest in the employee, provide fair treatment and compensation.

• The need to have hope – ability to grow in the organization, develop skills and have opportunities for career progress or advancement.

• The need to feel a sense of worth – the employee’s confidence that hard work, competence and commitment to the organization will lead to recognition and reward.

• The need to feel competent – the expectation that an employee’s skill level will be matched to assignments that use the skills and are challenging.

These factors apply equally to sworn and civilian employees.

Fair compensation is one of the incentive factors for employees to stay with their

current employer. In Springdale, the compensation offered to employees for most of the 1 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave by Leigh Branham, 2005, American Management Association, NY



sworn line level positions is lower than that of other agencies in the immediate area.

Compensation at the top pay rate for Police Officer, Master Police Officer or Police

Officer II, Corporal and Sergeant were obtained for Springdale and the other three

municipal police agencies in the Northwest Arkansas region and are provided in the

following table.

Springdale Rogers Bentonville Fayetteville Other Cities Avg.

% Above Springdale

Officer – Entry 30,090 31,179 32,261 34,857 32,766 9%Officer – Top Rate 43,280 37,170 47,778 47,267 44,072 2%Master PO or PO II – Lowest na 39,395 35,464 Na 37,430 naMaster PO or PO II – Highest na 54,226 52,541 Na 53,383 naCorporal - Lowest na 35,006 39,021 43,053 39,027 naCorporal – Highest na 55,307 57,803 53,105 55,405 naSergeant – Lowest 37,025 48,173 42,910 45,399 45,494 23%Sergeant - Highest 55,538 59,114 63,565 61,476 61,385 11%

The average pay rate for entry level Officer for the three other surveyed cities is

9% above Springdale’s pay rate and the average highest pay rate is 2% above the

highest Springdale Officer pay. However, Officer’s pay must also be compared to the

pay for Master Police Officer and Police Officer II pay rates. A Master Police Officer or

Police Officer II classification is offered in Rogers and Bentonville – these positions

provide higher pay rates for Officers who have obtained a specified number of years on

the job, passing a written test, training certification and/or serving as a Field Training

Officer. Bentonville Officers must have two years on the job, possess their

“Intermediate Certificate” and serve as a Field Training Officer. In Rogers, the only

requirements are that an Officer must have four years on the job and pass a written test

(almost all Officers with more than four years on the job are Master Police Officers).



These positions provide the opportunity for tenured Officers to increase their pay

without promoting to a higher level position and should be used for comparison with

Officer’s pay rates in Springdale and Fayetteville.

The average Sergeants’ pay rate in the three comparison cities (using the

highest pay rate) is approximately 11% above that of Springdale Sergeants.

Bentonville and Rogers do not have fixed pay “steps” for employees but have

entry level pay rates and subsequent to that entry level, either Council approved pay

increases or cost of living adjustments – similar to Springdale. Employees who are in

one classification for many years will continue to receive pay increases and cost of

living adjustments when they are approved by the City Council. This system also

means that an employee in a new position (e.g. new Officer, newly promoted Sergeant)

will not receive the four or five “step” increases every year (typically 5%) as occurs in

other Cities that have this type of pay compensation system and will remain at their

initial pay level unless increases to pay are approved. The result is that an Officer with

three years experience (and City-wide pay “freezes” during that time) will be making the

same hourly wage as newly hired Officers.

Each pay system has its advantages and disadvantages and it is important for

managers and City Administrators to be aware of the impact on their employees and

possible effect on the attrition rate. The economic downturn of the last several years

have had a significant negative effect on City revenue which has resulted in budget

reductions, pay freezes and other changes in the workplace. During difficult economic

times it is important clearly communicate the need for freezes or reductions and when

City revenues increase to reward employees with reasonable pay increases.



Another significant pay issue is parity between positions in the Police Department

and Fire Department with similar job functions, roles and responsibility. The first level of

comparison is the first line supervisor – Sergeants in the Police Department and

Captains in the Fire Department. In Springdale, typical of most Cities, Sergeants

supervise a crew of Officers and all or a portion of the City (frequently all of the City in

Springdale); and Fire Captains provide supervision for a Fire Station based crew

(typically one Fire Apparatus) and a “first in” District. It is common for Cities to pay their

Fire Captains and Police Sergeants the same rate of pay based on the similar job

functions. Pay equity is also recommended for Police Lieutenant to Fire Battalion Chief,

and Police Captain to Fire Division Chief or Assistant Chief based on the same criteria.

Currently Fire Captains are paid 15.8% higher than Police Sergeants, Fire

Battalion Chiefs are paid 18.2% higher than Police Lieutenants and the Fire Assistant

Chief is paid 10.3% higher than Police Captains. It is common and reasonable for these

positions to be paid equitably.

The major focus on the attrition rate in an organization should be on the line level

positions and with employees with less than five years of service – for both sworn and

civilian positions. These positions and employees have fewer ties to a specific

organization and more willing to consider the benefits of moving to another agency.

Long term employees or those who have been promoted to higher level positions are

less likely to leave the organization. Because of this a significant focus should be on

providing a similar pay and benefits and workplace environment as other agencies in

the region. The overall goal should be to provide a fair compensation package and



workplace environment for all employees with a specific focus on line level personnel as

their attrition rate has the most significant impact on an organization.

City and Department managers should establish an attrition rate goal and track it

quarterly; and if the rate trends upward for six or more months steps should be taken to

take appropriate steps to address it.

Recommendations: Establish the compensation for Police Department employees at or above the average pay rates of the three surrounding Cities in an effort to keep a high quality workforce and reduce the attrition rate.

Review the Officer, Dispatcher and Jailer positions to determine specific steps that reasonably can be taken to improve retaining high quality employees in these positions.

Establish pay equity between Police Department positions and Fire Department positions based on job function and responsibility; Police Sergeants to Fire Captains; Police Lieutenants to Fire Battalion Chiefs; and Police Captains to Fire Division Chiefs.

(4) Use of Technology in the Department.

Modern technology can provide significant benefits for a City and police

department and over the last several decades many police departments across the

United States have invested significant resources and time to plan and implement the

latest technology. Frequently the technology is CAD (Computer Aided Dispatch)

integrated with the RMS (Records Management System) and electronic field report

writing; other systems are the MVAR (Mobile Video/Audio Recording) system and AVL

(Automatic Vehicle Location) systems. Frequently, the successful implementation of

these systems has taken more resources and more time than was stated by the vendor

and anticipated by the police agency. Notwithstanding these impediments, over the last

10 years many technology projects have been successfully implemented in police



departments throughout the United States. The goal of all of these projects is to

enhance the ability of PD employees to accomplish their jobs and to improve the

policing provided to a community.

Springdale has successfully implemented several technology projects that

enhance the ability of staff to perform their jobs. These projects include the installation

of an MVAR system and MDCs (Mobile Data Computers) and AVL (Automatic Vehicle

Locators) in all police vehicles and crime mapping system for the Department. The

MDCs allow Officers to obtain wanted persons, drivers’ license and registration

information from the MDC and write their reports in the field, rather than requiring a trip

to headquarters to write their reports. This helps Officers to remain in the field and

thereby can facilitate quicker responses to calls for service. The AVL project is

scheduled to be completed in 2012 and when implemented will provide an electronic

display of field Officers’ locations to identify the closest unit to the reported call for

service, again with a goal of improving response times to incidents. The crime mapping

project will help the Department to more quickly identify crime and possible crime trends

that may develop. This information will be used internally to enhance the SPD’s ability

to apprehend criminals and also to provide appropriate information to the public.

(5) Police Department Facility.

A few other sections of the report may make mention of a specific work area of

the PD facility but it is important to provide a general overview and evaluation. The

main facility on Spring Street is usable but substandard for functionality and adequate

space for today’s operational needs, examples of this include:



• The lack of adequate space led to the Criminal Investigations Division renting a building several years ago for their operations, in 2012 they will be moving closer to headquarters but still are off-site.

• The Jail does not meet current code for a Jail facility and if it is remodeled will

need significant work to bring it up to today’s standards.

• The report writing “room” is actually a frequently used main hallway in the building and is not conducive to report writing

• Several former closets or storage rooms are now used for offices.

• Several mobile trailers have been erected on the grounds to house an investigative task force because space in the building was unavailable.

Overall, the Department has made best use of their headquarters but plans

should be made to upgrade and expand it within the next five years.



3. PATROL OPERATIONS DIVISION.This section provides information regarding the current organization and

operations of the Patrol Division of the Springdale Police Department. The information

was developed through interviews of SPD management and personnel, review of

documents, call for service data and other data provided to the project team. This

section provides an overview of the Division, the current staffing levels, a detailed

analysis of workload and staffing needed to provide service to the community.

1. PATROL SHIFT OPERATIONS.

The following information was obtained through interviews with SPD personnel,

electronic data via the CAD, RMS, and case management systems, as well as any

relevant documents associated with patrol (i.e., statistical reports, training records,

leave time records, budgets, etc.).

The project team collected extensive information regarding the SPD workload

activities relating to field patrol personnel (i.e., Patrol Officers and Sergeants).

Specifically, this involved the raw data set that captured all dispatch communication

activity for the Springdale Police Department in calendar year (CY) 2011 and included

the following types of information:

• Call or Event Number

• Date and Time of Initial Creation of the CAD Case

• Location of Call

• Type of Call

• Priority of Call (“Response” in Springdale CAD Data)

• Time of Unit(s) Dispatch



• Time of Unit(s) In-route

• Time of Unit(s) On-Scene Arrival

• Time of Unit(s) Clearance

• Beat Unit Identifiers (e.g., unit numbers) for all responding units

• Incident Disposition (e.g., report taken, arrest, citation, etc.)

This information serves as the context for analyzing patrol’s staffing needs and

estimating workload activity, including the identification of community-generated calls for

service, as well as Officer initiated activity. This summary description of SPD patrol

services is organized as follows:

• Patrol unit scheduled deployment

• Patrol officer availability

• Total calls for service

• Calls for service by priority

• Calls for service response and handling time

• Calls for service dispositions

• Officer initiated activity and handling time

The first section provides the current patrol unit deployment, showing by time of

day the number of patrol units scheduled.

(1) Patrol Work Schedule and Officer Availability.

Patrol Sergeants and Officers in the Springdale Police Department work eight

hour shifts five days a week. The Department does not use a “team concept” where

Sergeants and Officers work with the same people each day but have different days off

during the week to provide a consistent level of staffing. However, Sergeants and



Officers do work the same eight hour shift so will frequently work the same day and

therefore supervised by the same Sergeant.

As of April 2012 the authorized Patrol staffing is 3 Lieutenants, 6 Sergeants, 65

Officers and 2 Traffic Accident Investigators (civilian positions). Personnel are assigned

to three shifts to provide 24/7 coverage. Each Patrol Shift staffed with one Lieutenant,

two Sergeants and 16-21 Officers (April 2012); plus two Officers assigned to traffic

safety on Shift A. Patrol works the following schedule:

• Shift A hours are 0600-1400

• Shift B hours are 1400-2200

• Shift C hours are 2200-0600

The shifts do not overlap so if a call for service that requires an immediate

response occurs, one or more Officers will leave briefing and respond to the call. Street

staffing is provided from two additional sources:

• Traffic Accident Investigators (2 civilian positions) whose primary responsibility is to respond to traffic accidents, traffic hazards, parking problems and related low risk field incidents. They relieve Officers from responding to over 2,500 calls for service in 2011.

• The Crime Suppression Unit (1 Sergeant and 6 Officers) works Tuesday – Friday from 1300-2300 hours and is frequently on the streets working proactively on crime problems but also can respond to calls for service if needed.

The table on the following page lists the authorized number of Officers assigned

to patrol services to show a graphical depiction of patrol officer staffing over a 24 hour

day. These Officers’ primary duty is to respond to calls for service. A Lieutenant and

Sergeants are also deployed on every shift for supervision and overall management of

patrol services. Patrol Sergeants in Springdale also respond to calls for service and

sometimes handle calls for service as the primary unit, notwithstanding their main role



as a supervisor; Sergeants are not included in this analysis due to their primary role as

supervisors. These numbers do not include the Traffic Officers or the Officers assigned

to the Crime Suppression Unit.

Authorized Patrol Staffing for 2012

Hour A Shift 0600-1400

B Shift 1400-2200

C Shift 2200-0600

Average Staffing is the Shift Staffing

0000 11.4 11.40100 11.4 11.40200 11.4 11.40300 11.4 11.40400 11.4 11.40500 11.4 11.40600 12.9 12.90700 12.9 12.90800 12.9 12.90900 12.9 12.91000 12.9 12.91100 12.9 12.91200 12.9 12.91300 12.9 12.91400 15.0 15.01500 15.0 15.01600 15.0 15.01700 15.0 15.01800 15.0 15.01900 15.0 15.02000 15.0 15.02100 15.0 15.02200 11.4 11.42300 11.4 11.4

The above table depicts the authorized number of Patrol Officers when all of the

Officers assigned to the shift actually work their shift. This equals a total of

approximately 314 hours per day of patrol staffing. There is not a specific minimum

staffing level on patrol but generally a supervisor will call in someone to work overtime

when the staffing level falls below eight Officers.

The actual staffing level is often lower than the authorized level due to officers off

on leave, on a training assignment or other reasons. The following section shows the



number of leave hours and training hours taken by Officers assigned to the Patrol

Division in 2011 and the resulting actual staffing level.

(2) Leave Hours for Patrol Division Officers.

There are two primary factors that reduce staffing from the authorized level to the

“actual” level – the employee attrition rate (discussed in the previous chapter) and

employee leave time.

An employee is scheduled to work 2080 hours in a year (260 eight hour shifts).

The total number of hours actually worked on their patrol shift is reduced by leave hours

used, in-service training and other assigned tasks. The project team used personnel

leave data obtained from the PD to determine the number of leave hours for patrol

personnel for calendar years 2010 and 2011. The number of training hours was

determined from records provided by SPD staff. Training records did not show the

number of hours that were assigned as part of their regular work hours and the hours

that were paid as OT. An estimate of 75% on duty hours and 25% off duty (OT) hours

was used to determine the average number of annual training hours for Patrol Officers.

Additionally, Officers in their first year were excluded from the calculations due to the

significant training that occurs during the first year of employment.

Officers also perform a variety of administrative tasks during their work shifts –

such as shift briefing, meal breaks, meetings during the shift, etc. The project team

used an average of 45 minutes per shift for the actual number of work shifts they

worked after deducting leave hours and training hours.



The following table summarizes the availability of Patrol Officers after deducting

leaves taken (vacation, injury, sick, compensatory time off, military, funeral and

suspension), training hours and also the on-duty administrative tasks.

Average of 2010 & 2011 Hours Work Hours for Patrol Officers & Sergeants

Total Paid Annual Work Hours 2,080Average Leave Usage 261Average In-Service / Special Skills Training 55Total Unavailable Hours 316

Net Work Hours 1,763% Annual Availability 84.8% Administrative Time (45 Min. x 224 Shifts) 220Net Available Work Hours 1,543% Annual Availability 74.2%

The following points summarize the data above:

• Patrol Officers averaged 261 hours of leave usage annually for the two year period. The sample includes all Patrol Officers who worked during the year. This includes time off for vacation, sick, comp time, injury, military leave, etc.

The project team typically sees average leave hour usage higher than the number of leave hours used by Springdale employees, indicating a relatively young work force (who may not have accumulated and/or do not use a significant number of vacation hours) but also a dedicated work force that does not use very many sick leave hours.

• Springdale PD Officers attended an estimated average of 55 training hours on duty or as part of their 2080 straight time hours – either as part of their regular work schedule or adjusted straight time schedule. These classes were to meet Department training requirements or develop special skills.

• This equates to a total of 1,763 hours, or approximately 85% of the time that a patrol officer is present at work and working a patrol shift.

• During their work shift Officers attending briefing, take meal breaks, attend court, refuel and check their vehicle, etc. These tasks are defined as “administrative time” and take an estimated 45 minutes per shift or 220 hours annually. This is on duty time but normally needed for these routine tasks so not counted as “available” time, however, a Patrol Officer is almost always available to respond to emergency calls for service while performing these administrative tasks.



In total, a Springdale PD Officer is available to provide patrol services for

approximately 1,763 hours per year but after deducting administrative tasks during the

shift the average Officer is working approximately 1,543 hours per year. This is a higher

number of hours that employees are “present and working” than the project team

typically sees in police department studies. It is a significant positive factor for the City

of Springdale as it reduces overall staffing costs due to fewer shifts requiring overtime to

backfill patrol shifts.

The table below shows the reduction in the staffing level as a result of Officers

being off on leave or away at training – the “actual” staffing level for 2011, as compared

to the “authorized” Patrol staffing level shown previously. As is true for all

organizations, the “actual” staffing level is lower than the “authorized” staffing level. The

project team used the monthly patrol rosters (months of February, May, August and

November) to estimate the actual number of Officers working on a shift. This numbers

do not include the one Station Officer staffed by each shift or those assigned to the

Crime Suppression Unit.



Actual Patrol Staffing for 2011

Hour A Shift 0600-1400

B Shift 1400-2200

C Shift 2200-0600

Average Staffing

Authorized Staffing

Difference in Staffing Level

0000 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.40100 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.40200 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.40300 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.40400 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.40500 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.40600 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.90700 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.90800 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.90900 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.91000 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.91100 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.91200 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.91300 8.9 8.9 8.9 8.9 12.91400 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.01500 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.01600 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.01700 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.01800 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.01900 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.02000 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.02100 10.3 10.3 10.3 10.3 15.02200 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.42300 7.2 7.2 7.2 7.2 11.4

The above table depicts the total number of Patrol Officers for the different hours

of the day that actually worked an assigned shift on the streets in 2011 – this level

equals a total of approximately 212 hours per day of patrol staffing. This actual staffing

level reflects the “net” hours worked compared to the “authorized” staffing level. The

actual staffing level deducts the hours for employees who were off on various types of

leave or at a training course that is part of their normal work hours (or adjusted work

hours).



2. CALLS FOR SERVICE WORKLOADS.

The table on the following page shows the total number of community

generated calls for service (CFS) by time of day and day of week for CY 2011. The

project team defined a community generated call for service as a call where at least one

SPD sworn officer provided the primary response to an incident. The CAD system data

was used to determine the number of CFS. It does not include the 2,644 CFS handled

by the two civilian Traffic Accident Investigators nor the 58,553 incidents of Officer

initiated activity.

Community Generated Calls for Service by Day & Hour – Calendar Year 2011

Hour Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Total0000 277 95 102 122 117 133 211 1,0570100 208 87 104 102 78 106 178 8630200 201 70 64 60 58 77 173 7030300 181 52 57 47 52 57 114 5600400 115 38 37 45 45 53 84 4170500 103 41 42 43 47 40 67 3830600 55 63 73 73 67 58 64 4530700 76 129 146 111 110 141 96 8090800 110 161 208 174 170 195 166 1,1840900 136 202 164 181 179 163 170 1,1951000 165 220 211 197 184 207 202 1,3861100 186 203 172 208 193 214 231 1,4071200 203 207 206 210 192 197 229 1,4441300 181 214 208 189 229 187 220 1,4281400 193 235 244 222 202 239 217 1,5521500 192 265 265 245 243 320 251 1,7811600 193 313 323 292 335 315 262 2,0331700 199 296 318 273 284 311 275 1,9561800 260 255 277 280 265 298 270 1,9051900 250 250 224 265 240 258 252 1,7392000 223 249 209 253 232 265 271 1,7022100 189 223 187 191 197 269 311 1,5672200 204 185 187 170 175 262 322 1,5052300 161 147 149 140 159 231 310 1,297Total 4,261 4,200 4,177 4,093 4,053 4,596 4,946 30,326

Ave/day 82 81 80 79 78 88 95



SPD responded to 30,326 community generated calls for service, approximately

83 per day, where a SPD unit provided the primary response. The busiest days of the

week were Friday and Saturday with an average of 88 and 95 CFS respectively. Of the

total number of calls, A Shift units (days) handled 10,858 calls (36%), B Shift units

(afternoon/evening) handled 12,683 calls (42%) and C Shift units (nights) handled 6,785

calls for service (22%).

The table on the following page shows all of the types of calls for service that

generated over 500 incidents during 2011:

Type of Call # of Calls % of TotalDisturbances 3,076 10.1%Alarm 2,208 7.3%Suspicious Person/Vehicle/Activity 1,588 5.2%Welfare Check 1,394 4.6%Accident 1,188 3.9%Theft 1,164 3.8%Stalled Vehicle 1,035 3.4%Domestic Disturbance 838 2.8%911 Hang-up 748 2.5%Reckless 690 2.3%Criminal Mischief 614 2.0%Burglary 566 1.9%Shoplifting 546 1.8%DWI Driver 536 1.8%Breaking Or Entering 518 1.7%Intoxicated Subject 516 1.7%All Other Types 13,101 43.2%

Total 30,326 100.0%

The “other” types of calls include assisting the Fire Department or another police

agency, traffic hazards, juvenile mischief, attempt to contact, etc. As shown above, the

10 most frequent calls for service account for 13,929 calls, almost 46% of the total

number of calls during the year.



The following table shows the breakdown by priority of the type of call for service,

which is typically the final priority (if it changed from the initial call received by Dispatch).

The call priority definitions are listed below along with the most common calls for service

in that priority type:

• Priority 1 – “Emergency” response (e.g. shooting, major injury accident)

• Priority 2 – “Immediate”, a high priority response (e.g. family fight, 911 call-unknown nature, “in progress” calls, burglary or robbery alarm)

• Priority 3 – “Routine” response (e.g. suspicious vehicle, person or circumstances; disturbance, loud noise or music, possible mentally ill person)

• Priority 4 – “It Can Wait” response (petty theft, meet person in lobby; auto burglary, property damage accident; patrol check)

CFS Priority Number % of Total1 3,345 11.0%2 11,410 37.6%3 8,945 29.5%4 6,626 21.8%

Total 30,326 100%

As shown above, 11% of the calls for service in CY 2011 were Priority 1 calls,

about 37.6% were Priority 2 and 29.5% were Priority 3 calls.

(1) Average Times for Response and Handling of Calls for Service in 2011.

The response to and handling of community generated calls for service is one of

the primary tasks of any municipal police agency and on that frequently is the subject of

inquiry from city leaders and members of the community. The project team calculated

the average times using all of the calls for service reported to the Springdale Police

Department in 2011.

The following table shows three individual time components and two overall time

components for a community generated call for service:



• Call processing time – from the time the CAD event was created until the officer is dispatched. The initial seconds that a Dispatcher is talking to the reporting party before the CAD case was generated is not tracked so cannot be included in the call processing time; additionally, if the call is not immediately dispatched to an officer (e.g. because none are available) this time is included in the “call processing” time even though the Dispatcher has completed his/her information gathering and CAD entry.

• Travel time – from the time the call was dispatched to an officer until the arrival of the first police unit (the difference between the “dispatch time” and the “on scene time” for the first arriving unit).

• Overall call “response” time – the call process time + travel time. This is the time citizens are most often interested in – from the time they call 9-1-1 until an officer arrives at the scene of the reported incident (shaded box).

• On scene time – from the time of arrival to the time the officer cleared the call.

• Overall call handling time – the total of the travel time and on scene time (shaded box).

The times are shown for the different types of priority calls for service and the

overall total for all calls for service.

Final Priority

CFS by Priority

Call Processing

Travel Response (Processing +

Travel)

On Scene Call Handling (Travel + On

Scene)1 3,345 1.6 4.5 6.1 24.5 29.02 11,410 3.2 5.5 8.7 16.2 21.73 8,945 9.3 7.1 16.4 15.3 22.44 6,626 13.7 6.8 20.5 11.3 18.1

All 30,326 6.9 6.0 12.9 15.8 21.8

Total Officer Hours Required to Handle Calls for Service 11,018

As shown above, the average “Call Processing” time for Priority 1 calls is 1.6

minutes and the average “Travel” time is 4.5 minutes. This equals an average

“Response” time for the first SPD unit to arrive at the scene of a Priority 1 call for

service of 6.1 minutes, 8.7 minutes for Priority 2 calls and 16.4 minutes for Priority 3

calls.



The average “On Scene” time for the different types of priority calls ranged from

24.5 minutes for Priority 1 calls to 11.3 minutes for Priority 4 calls. The overall average

“Call Handling” time of 21.8 minutes is lower than the average time of approximately 30

minutes per call for service commonly seen by the project team in other police

department studies throughout the United States.

The total Officer time required to handle community generated calls for service in

2011 was 11,018 hours (30,326 CFS x 21.8 minutes per call).

The following table shows the percentage of calls for service that were

responded to within various time ranges.

CFS by Priority Type

Travel Time in Minutes Total # Total %

0:00–4:59 5:00–6:59 7:00–9:59 Above 10:00

No Time Stamps

1 2,154 555 329 153 154 3,345 11.0%2 5,446 1,801 1,399 1,037 1,727 11,410 37.6%3 2,661 1,015 1,017 1,134 3,118 8,945 29.5%4 2,107 766 755 817 2,181 6,626 21.8%

Total 12,368 4,137 3,500 3,141 7,180 30,326 100%

% of CFS 40.8% 13.6% 11.5% 10.4% 23.7% 100.0%

The times listed above were separated by the Priority type for each call for

service. The calls listed as “no time stamps” are the calls that either a dispatch time or

arrival time was listed in the CAD record. The most common reason for this is for

Officers who are dispatched to a call but cancelled while “in route” to the call – an

“arrival” time stamp is appropriately not entered for his/her response. There are also

additional reasons for missing CAD data that include Officer, Dispatcher or equipment

error in not recording it.



As the above table shows, from the time an Officer receives the call, SPD units

responded to all community generated calls for service within 5 minutes approximately

41% of the time, and within 7 minutes for 54% of all calls for service.

(2) Disposition of Calls for Service.

The result of the service provided by the PD is typically a few word “disposition”

that is listed in the CAD system, such as reporting party contacted, quiet on departure,

person gone on arrival, arrest made, citation issued, etc. In Springdale the disposition

is only listed that a report was filed which does not provide any information out of the

CAD system for what happened on the calls for service. There were 3 types of report

dispositions, listed in the table below.

Disposition # of CFS % of CFSReport Filed 24,796 81.7%Accident Report Filed 5,514 18.2%Fire Report 16 0.1%

Total 30,326 100%

(3) Officer “Back-Up” Time.

Officers also respond as backup units to assist the primary officer on many calls

for service. The CAD system used by Springdale PD captures the number of calls

where officers respond as a back-up officer and also the amount of time officers spend

as a back-up officer. The CAD data showed that one back-up officer responded to

assist the primary officer on 8,864 calls (14%) and two or more back up officers

responded to assist the primary unit on 23,985 (38%) of the CFS in 2011. This equals a

52% “back-up” rate where more than one officer arrived on the scene to handle the call.

This rate is within the 40% - 60% range commonly seen by the project team has seen in



other police departments. The total hours of backup officers’ time are used when

calculating total committed time.

(4) Additional Workload – Report Writing and Bookings.

In addition to the time required to handle CFS, Officers perform tasks associated

with the calls such as report writing and booking persons arrested at the incident. SPD

Officers wrote a total of 8,302 reports in 2011. Almost all agencies, including

Springdale, are not able to track the amount of time taken by Officers to write reports.

The project team uses an average of 45 minutes for each report written by Officers,

totaling 6,227 hours in 2011.

SPD Officers also arrested 5,570 people in 2011. When a person is arrested in

Springdale most of the time he/she will be transported to the Springdale PD

headquarters where there is a jail holding facility. Springdale has civilian Jailer

positions that assist officers in booking their prisoners. The prisoner is either housed at

the Springdale Jail or transported to a County Jail (Washington County or Benton

County) after booking is completed. The CAD system tracks “prisoner” and “transport”

time and this time added up to a total of 4,698 hours. This is lower than the 6,963 hours

of booking and transportation time estimated by the project team (5,570 arrests x 75

minutes per incident). The higher number of 6,983 will be used in subsequent

calculations.

Springdale Officers also are required to provide additional transportation of

prisoners to/from Washington County Jail or Benton County Jail so prisoners can make

court appearances in the municipal court in Springdale. This time is tracked in CAD and



is time spent in addition to the time required for initial booking and transportation of

arrestees. The amount of time is shown in the following table:

Type of Detail (from CAD) Number Average Time in Minutes

Total Time in Hours

At PD With Prisoner 3,042 45.7 2,319CID Interview, etc. 591 25.8 254Transport 2,878 29.0 1,390Total 6,511 37.2 3,963

Springdale Officers spent a total of approximately 3,963 hours on these tasks as

tracked in CAD. It is almost certain that some of the hours for the CAD event code “at

PD with Prisoner” are included in the estimate of 6,983 hours for initial booking and

transportation; however, it is difficult to estimate how much of the 3,963 hours is

included. Without a methodology to make a reasonable estimate, the project team used

50% of the time or 1,981 hours. The total number of hours for both of these tasks will

be used in this report and for the staffing calculations in the final report. The table

below shows the total number of staff hours committed to these tasks in 2011:

Number Average Time in Minutes

Total Time in Hours

Officer Reports 8,302 45 6,226Initial Booking & Transportation 5,570 75 6,963Prisoner Transportation Tasks (50% estimate) 6,511 37.2 1,981Total Hours (estimated) 15,170

It is not known how many of the 5,570 arrestees were cited and released at the

scene, transported to the SPD holding facility and released from that location, or

transported to one of the County Jails after preliminary processing at SPD.

3. OFFICER INITIATED ACTIVITY.

In addition to responding to community generated calls for service, Patrol

Officers engage in a number of officer initiated activities during their work hours, such



as traffic stops, pedestrian stops, security checks, etc. The number of officer initiated

activities was determined by identifying the number of self-initiated events from the CAD

record. The table on the following page shows the number of officer initiated incidents.

Officer Initiated Activity – Calendar Year 2011

Hour Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Total0000 414 431 803 737 758 683 631 4,4570100 371 424 674 637 712 638 528 3,9840200 247 336 354 321 401 343 303 2,3050300 181 247 365 396 357 347 210 2,1030400 143 239 318 319 314 316 187 1,8360500 64 107 128 124 165 114 116 8180600 121 352 343 318 179 207 144 1,6640700 234 429 401 430 374 387 290 2,5450800 335 582 647 622 403 463 324 3,3760900 352 460 499 436 371 382 312 2,8121000 188 328 343 321 269 300 230 1,9791100 169 210 252 250 223 207 194 1,5051200 184 272 337 316 286 204 181 1,7801300 141 287 290 248 238 205 120 1,5291400 250 352 337 328 299 336 305 2,2071500 466 521 538 484 507 443 572 3,5311600 377 477 449 521 456 465 526 3,2711700 393 340 356 425 328 354 334 2,5301800 265 243 260 303 262 252 295 1,8801900 319 264 310 297 272 315 297 2,0742000 336 365 336 383 390 393 414 2,6172100 226 242 256 259 291 297 276 1,8472200 216 281 264 307 378 354 309 2,1092300 323 573 578 657 735 509 419 3,794Total 6,315 8,362 9,438 9,439 8,968 8,514 7,517 58,553

Ave/day 121 161 182 182 172 164 145

As shown above, Patrol Officers initiated 58,553 on-view incidents, an average of

160 events per day. Most frequently these events were vehicle stops but also included

pedestrian stops, assisting outside agencies and warrant service. This is a significantly

high number of officer initiated incidents, almost double that of the community

generated calls for service and significantly higher than the number of Officer initiated

incidents commonly seen by the project team in other police departments.



The time spent by Officers on self-initiated activities was calculated using data

from the CAD system. The total hours are listed in the table below.

Self Initiated Incidents

Responses by Backup Officers

Average Handling Time

(Minutes)

Total Hours

Initiating Officer 58,553 9.0 8,7832nd Officer 13,549 25.7 5,8033rd (or more) Officers 4,171 54.0 3,754

Total Hours 18,340

CAD showed an average time of 9.0 minutes spent by the first Officer arriving at

the scene. The time spent by backup Officers was greater than the first Officer – at an

average time of 25.7 minutes for the 2nd Officer and 54.0 minutes for the 3rd and any

additional Officers.

The chart on the following page shows the types and number of incidents for the

initiating Officer.



Officer Initiated Incidents – 1st Officer Data

Type of Incident Number Percent Avg. MinutesExtra Patrol-Log 33,567 57.3% 2.0Traffic Stop 12,698 21.7% 11.5Follow Up 2,561 4.4% 19.3Foot Patrol 1,876 3.2% 10.4Checking Vehicle 1,682 2.9% 7.8Checking Subject 1,200 2.0% 9.5Special Assignment 1,050 1.8% 76.8Officer Busy 857 1.5% 130.9Warrant Service-Misdemeanor 690 1.2% 26.4Extra Patrol-Request 619 1.1% 2.7Radar 499 0.9% 6.2Log Vehicle @ Location 353 0.6% 1.9Safety Check of Premises 317 0.5% 19.5DWI Arrest 218 0.4% 32.5Checking Building 173 0.3% 7.5Walk Thru-Bar-Club 128 0.2% 9.5Warrant-Felony 34 0.1% 27.7Bicycle Patrol 18 0.03% 102.8All Other 13 0.02% 12.2

Total Incidents & Average Time 58,553 100% 9.0

Extra Patrol and Traffic stops were the most frequent events initiated by Officers

during 2011, accounting for over 46,000 events out of the total of 58,553.

It is likely the primary reason the number of “Extra Patrol-Log” events is because

of the Patrol Division’s points system – where Officers are required to track their activity

during the shift and obtain one point for each hour of their shift. Officers get either a

point or ½ point credit for a dispatched call, assisting another Officer on a call, a report,

traffic stop, or making an arrest. One of the easy ways for Officers to obtain ½ point is

an “extra patrol” activity that they document. An extra patrol is intended to be a

meaningful activity to spend from a few minutes to many minutes conducting foot patrol,

or other preventive patrol activities. However, many people interviewed by the project

team stated that it has become a quick way to log points for an activity that takes no



more than a minute, such as driving through an intersection or an area and

documenting it as an “extra patrol”. This also takes Dispatchers time to create the CAD

events solely for statistical purposes.

An additional unintended negative consequence that this system has had is, in

some cases, made it more difficult for Sergeants to hold their Officers accountable for

performing well. A Sergeant, who believes an Officer is not performing up to standards

but who regularly obtains his/her points for the month, will have a difficult time making

the case of poor performance. There does not appear to be a good reason to continue

this system as it currently exists. However, Officers should be productive and held

accountable for their work product by their supervisor and the Department; additional

methods to accomplish this will be discussed in the next section.

The next table shows the data for the 2nd arriving Officer to the incident. This

table shows the total number of responses and the average number of minutes the 2nd

Officer was at the scene.



Officer Initiated Incidents – 2nd Officer Data

Type of Incident Number % Avg. MinutesTraffic Stop 5,482 40.5% 12.3Checking Vehicle 1,495 11.0% 9.9Checking Subject 1,222 9.0% 9.9Special Assignment 1,190 8.8% 69.9Follow Up 1,095 8.1% 22.3Officer Busy 1,087 8.0% 83.5Foot Patrol 394 2.9% 18.7Warrant Service – Misdemeanor 354 2.6% 15.2DWI Arrest 319 2.4% 30.5Extra Patrol-Log 279 2.1% 6.0Extra Patrol-Request 185 1.4% 3.5Safety Ck Of Premises 156 1.2% 26.4Checking Building 138 1.0% 8.6Walk Thru-Bar-Club 59 0.4% 12.1Warrant Service – Felony 56 0.4% 25.5All Other 38 0.03% 6.6


Traffic stops and checking vehicles or subjects were the most frequent type of

events backup Officers responded to in 2011. It is interesting to note that the overall

average time for these secondary responses was higher, at 25.7 minutes, than the

primary officer handling the incident (9.0 minutes average). The next table shows the

time spent by the 3rd Officer (and any additional Officers) on these incidents.

Officer Initiated Incidents – 3rd Officer Data

Type of Incident Number % Avg. MinutesOfficer Busy 2,253 54.0% 69.5Special Assignment 1,285 30.8% 36.4Traffic Stop 184 4.4% 21.4Follow Up 135 3.2% 39.8Checking Subject 79 1.9% 17.0DWI Arrest 52 1.2% 18.2Checking Vehicle 40 1.0% 22.5Warrant Service-Misdemeanor 40 1.0% 43.7Warrant Service – Felony 38 0.9% 37.2All Other 65 0.02% 1.4




“Officer Busy” (frequently indicating prisoner transportation and/or handling) and

“Special Assignment” were the most frequent incident types for these backup Officers in

2011. It is interesting to note that the overall average time for these 3 rd Officers again

was higher, at 54.0 minutes than either the primary Officer handling the incident or the

second Officer arriving on the scene.

Recommendation:

Eliminate the “points” system for Patrol Officers as it currently exists.

4. PATROL FIELD SERVICES PRINCIPLES AND BEST PRACTICES.

The orientation toward the provision of field patrol services in municipal law

enforcement agencies has come full circle in the United States over the last 60 years.

The historic law enforcement approach to field services involved a Police Officer who

walked a particular beat or neighborhood. A traditional beat officer knew people in the

area and was in a position to know potential problems before they occurred, or likely

suspects for crimes committed on the Officers beat. As cities grew and metropolitan

areas spread the motorized officer became the normal transportation mode to respond

to calls for service. The police department’s focus changed to one of responding

quickly (i.e. in a patrol car) to all types of calls in a wider geographic area and overall,

fewer officers assigned to foot or vehicle patrol duties. At the same time, society at

large and city residents developed rising expectations of the services that would be

provided by police officers (e.g. the passage of domestic violence laws in the late 1970s

and 1980s). Over time these factors resulted in a beat officer that had less local

neighborhood knowledge and less frequent contact with the residents in his/her service



area but with a higher expectations among the general public that they would improve

the neighborhoods.

Initiatives over the last four decades have attempted to once again provide

policing services more tangible to the community. This law enforcement focus

throughout the country has been under the general umbrella of “community policing” – a

return to providing a wide range of services identified by citizens and more frequent

contact with a police officer and more “proactive” law enforcement in neighborhoods

and schools. Community policing has taken the form of countless initiatives and

iterations throughout the country in recent years. The project team supports local

community policing efforts, especially ones that involve Patrol personnel when they

have uncommitted time during their shift. These efforts should also involve the active

participation of supervisors, managers and other specialty units (e.g. School Resource

Officers).

Over the course of several hundred police department studies the Matrix

Consulting Group has developed a list of key elements in the effective provision of field

patrol services in a community, including the responsibility of Officers to be proactive

during their shifts (to identify and resolve problems) and not just reactive in handling

calls for service. These general policing elements are summarized on the next several

pages.



Management Task Comments

Reactive Patrol Requirements • The primary mission of any law enforcement field patrol force. Responding to citizen requests (or calls) for service is the most critical element of successful patrol services.

• As staffing allows, the Department should have clearly defined areas of responsibility (beats) and should have defined how many units are assigned to respond to the different types of calls.

• The Department should have clearly defined response policies in place; including prioritization of calls, response time targets for each priority and supervisor on scene policies.

• This reactive workload should make up between 50% and 60% of each Officer’s net available time per shift (on average). This includes time to write reports, transport and book prisoners.

Proactive Patrol Requirements • Proactive patrol time is defined as all other activity not in response to a citizen generated call; it occurs during the “uncommitted” time of a shift. It includes items such as traffic enforcement, directed patrol, bike and foot patrol.

• The Department should have clearly defined uses for uncommitted time – i.e. officers should know what they are expected to do with their time when not responding to calls for service. This may include targeted preventive patrol for general visibility, traffic enforcement, developing relationships with members of the community, visiting schools or parks.

• The proactive element of field patrol should make up between 40% and 50% of an officer’s day (on average).

• Research and experience has shown the 40% – 50% range to be an appropriate level of uncommitted time for several reasons:- Less than 35% proactive time available to officers typically

does not allow for sufficient “bundling” of available time – time comes in intervals too short to be effectively utilized by law enforcement personnel for meaningful activity.

- Proactive time of more than 50% results in less efficient use of officer resources as it is difficult to have sufficient meaningful work tasks and manage personnel whose time is so heavily weighted toward proactive activities.

- Some exceptions to this latter concern are units which are dedicated to handle certain types of activity, e.g., traffic enforcement units, School Resource Officers, etc. However, it should be noted that the Officers assigned to these units should respond to any call for service when needed/required.

- A level of 45% proactive time or higher is typically seen in smaller suburban or rural communities; a level of 30-40% is more common in larger cities.



Management Task Comments

Problem Identification and Resolution

• Effective proactive patrol for municipal law enforcement requires the rapid identification of problems and issues, the development of an action plan to address issues as they arise, implementation of the potential solution and an regular evaluations to determine if the approach successfully addressed the issue.

• This approach should be used on criminal, traffic and other quality of life problems reported to the Department or discovered by officers during the course of their patrol duties.

• Officers have the primary role in accomplishing pro-active tasks, field projects (e.g. Problem Oriented Policing), etc.

• Formal and informal mechanisms for capturing and evaluating information should be used. This should be primarily handled by officers and supervisors, but managers must also have involvement and oversight.

Management of Patrol Resources

• Patrol supervisors and managers must take an active role in management of patrol. This includes developing and utilizing management reports that accurately depict the activity, response times to calls for service and the variety of current issues and problems being handled by patrol units.

• Resources must be geared to address actual workload and issues. This includes ensuring that patrol staffing is matched to workload, that patrol beats or sectors are designed to provide an even distribution of workload.

• This also includes matching resources to address issues in a proactive manner. This may include shifting beats to free staff to handle special assignments, assigning officers to targeted patrols, assigning traffic enforcement issues, etc.

• Staffing should be related to providing effective field response to calls for service, provision of proactive activity and ensuring officer and the safety of members of the public.

• Supervisors should be both an immediate resource to field officers (for advice, training, back-up, inter-personal skills) and field managers (handling basic administrative functions).

Measurement of Success and Performance

• Data should be used to plan and manage work in Patrol and other field work units.

• Effective field patrol should be measured in multiple ways to ensure that the Department is successful in handling multiple tasks or functions.

• Examples of effective performance measurement include: response time, time on scene, number of calls handled by an officer, back-up rate and the traffic enforcement index (citations/warnings + DUI arrests divided by injury + fatality accidents), overall level of crime and clearance rate.

• Managers and supervisors should track and review performance measures on a regular basis to know what level of service is being provided to the community and for use as one tool to ensure that services are effective and efficient.



The matrix above summarizes the basic elements of an effective and modern

patrol service in a community, providing both reactive field services (response to

community generated calls for service) and proactive work by Officers assigned to field

work units (i.e. Patrol Division). During these times of limited or decreasing budgetary

resources it becomes critically important for managers of the patrol function to make the

best use of Officer’s time to provide effective policing and meeting expectations of the

community.

The key elements identified above in the effective provision of field patrol

services in a community are summarized below:

› Effective municipal law enforcement requires a field patrol force, which is designed and managed to be flexible in providing both reactive, and proactive response to law enforcement issues in the community.

› This requires that the Department balance personnel, resources and time to handle both of these types of law enforcement. Between 50% and 60% of the time in a community should be spent handling all of the elements of reactive patrol. The remaining 40% to 50% should be spent specific proactive patrol activities, other self initiated tasks or community policing activities.

› The time that each Officer has available for proactive patrol needs to be structured and should not be approached in a random way. Random patrol is not effective in addressing issues in the community – patrol should include efforts to address specific problems in pre-determined ways. This should be planned and accomplished at the Officer/Sergeant or “squad” level with oversight provided by the Lieutenant.

› Any effective proactive approach to patrol requires that information be managed formally and that a formal effort be put into evaluating that information. This evaluation should lead to specific actions to address issues/problems in a community. In addition, attempts to address problems should be evaluated formally to determine if the efforts made have been effective.

These basic elements represent the essential ingredients of effective and

efficient municipal field law enforcement in the United States in the 21st century.



Establishing a patrol pro-activity target is important for effective management and

planning of a patrol operations force.

Springdale’s Patrol Division “points system” was designed to provide a method to

hold Patrol Officers’ accountable to be productive during their work shifts. However, it

has been in existence long enough for those Officers who so desire to “beat the system”

and accumulate the needed points to meet the established productivity goal. One of the

concerns with the existing point system is that when a supervisor of an Officer who is

“using” the system desires to hold the Officer accountable to be actually productive, not

just “meeting” the points goal, the supervisor has a more difficult time taking the Officer

to task as he/she is accomplishing the official productivity requirements. An alternate

system, where the Lieutenant, Sergeants and Officers on a shift to determine individual

productivity goals, receive regular feedback from their supervisor, and measure

accomplishment of those goals throughout the year will likely have greater success in

providing the desired accountability. As part of this system supervisors should be

provided regular (i.e. monthly) statistical reports showing individual Officer’s

productivity, such as reports written, investigations conducted, arrests made, field

contacts (e.g. vehicle and pedestrian stops), citations or warnings issued, and number

of calls for service handled. This information can and should be part of the information

used by the supervisor to evaluate an Officer’s overall performance for the month and

year.

(1) Factors to Consider in Establishing Patrol Staffing Levels.

The project team uses an analytical approach to determine the staffing level

required in a community such as Springdale. The approach is characterized by several



key factors that provide the basis for objective evaluation of a police department’s patrol

force:

› Staffing should be examined based on the ability of current staff to handle the calls for service generated by the community (and the related work such as report writing and processing arrestees); as well as providing sufficient time for proactive activities such as directed patrol, traffic enforcement and addressing on-going issues/problems in a neighborhood.

› Staffing is dependent on the time officers are actually available to perform the work required of the patrol function. In this evaluation, leave hours usage and time dedicated to administrative functions are examined.

› Policy is made by selecting a level of proactive, or uncommitted, time that is deemed to be appropriate for the community – this can be established by the Chief, City Manager and/or elected officials. In the case of Springdale, the project team recommends a target of an overall average of 40% uncommitted time that will enable Patrol Officers to handle the community generated calls for service effectively and efficiently, engage in a variety of targeted patrol activities (ability varies depending on time of day), and provide for safety of officers.

› The project team’s analysis does not include the utilization of ratios such as “officers per thousand” because they do not account for the unique characteristics of communities (e.g. demographics, workload, unique community needs, deployment, etc.). Although these ratios are interesting, they do not provide a comprehensive measure of staffing needs for a specific community, nor should policy makers use them as a basis to make decisions regarding patrol staffing. The Project team’s approach is supported by the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) that view ‘officer per thousand’ ratios as “totally inappropriate as a basis for staffing decisions”.

There are other significant factors for policy makers to consider when

determining staffing levels. These factors include, but are not limited to, the following:

› The type, severity and volume of crime in a community.

› The ability of the police department to meet response time goals to calls for service and solve crime (taken as a performance measure and not as a crime prevention/reduction measure).

› The level of police department involvement in providing non-traditional police services such as neighborhood problem solving, graffiti removal, community meetings and events and teaching/role modeling in the schools.



› The level of proactive efforts such as traffic safety and parking enforcement, narcotics enforcement, enforcement of vice crimes such as prostitution and liquor laws.

› Providing for basic officer safety and risk management of a patrol force. In some police agencies, the uncommitted time level may not be the primary measure to determine the minimum number of Patrol Officer positions required – it may be driven by officer safety concerns. For example, a staffing level needed to meet basic officer safety concerns, may result in an uncommitted time level that is above 50%.

The above factors should be used by policy makers in determining appropriate

staffing levels for all functions within the police department. The goal of a patrol staffing

analysis is to ensure sufficient patrol resources on duty 24 hours a day providing a high

level of service to the community. The ability of the Springdale Police Department to do

this depends on knowing and evaluating the community demand workload – the number

of community generated calls for service, reports and bookings of arrested persons.

These are the factors used by the project team to evaluate the number of patrol officers

needed in a community to achieve a Patrol Officer staffing level that will provide the

level of pro-activity that is desired by a community.

(2) Data Used to Conduct Staffing Calculations.

The Project team calculates uncommitted time in law enforcement agencies

using a mixture of known data combined with several assumptions. The table below

provides a brief description of the basis for this calculation for the City of Springdale.

Reactive Factor in Calculation of Uncommitted Time Summary Discussion

Calls for Service Actual call data obtained from the SPD’s Dispatch Center’s CAD system allowed the project team to determine the number of community generated calls for service (reactive time of Patrol Officers).




Call Handling Time Generally, an average call handling time of approximately 30 minutes is needed to efficiently and effectively handle a community generated call for service. The handling time includes an Officer’s travel time and on-scene time. A handling time that is higher than 40 minutes indicates Patrol Officers may not be timely in processing calls for service; a handling time lower than 30 minutes indicates Patrol Officers may not be providing an appropriate amount of attention to all calls for service.

Back-Up Frequency / Number of Units per Call

An average of 1.4 – 1.6 patrol units responding to handle a community generated call for service.

Duration of Time On-Scene by Back-Up

An average of 75% (or less) of the primary/initial unit’s handling time.

Number of Reports This number is based on the number of community-generated calls for service. For most incidents requiring a report the Officer will gather preliminary information while on-scene handling the call and spend additional time later in the shift, at the end of the shift or the next day. The project team’s experience with other municipal law enforcement has found that some type of report is written to document the incident on approximately 1/3 of the community generated calls for service.

Time to Complete a Report An average of 45 minutes is used to determine the time required for completing incident reports resulting from a call for service or self-initiated activity; this time is included as part of reactive workload time. The actual report writing time is currently not being captured by the CAD system.

Number of Arrests The actual number of arrests for 2011 was used.

Time to Complete an Arrest An average of the actual time it takes for an Officer to book an arrestee at the PD or a nearby jail facility. This time is included as part of reactive workload time. The project team used an average of 1.25 hours per arrest, to account for the additional travel and processing time required to book a prisoner into the County Jail.

Available Time of Officers / Officers on Duty

This number used in the calculations is the average number of all leave hours (e.g. vacation, sick, long term disability, military) used by Patrol Officers deducted from the total paid hours in a year (2,080) to obtain the actual hours that an Officer is working.




Availability of Supervisors to Handle Field Workloads

The staffing needs analysis determines the appropriate number of Officers needed to handle the community generated calls for service. Sergeants are not included as primary responders to calls for service. This is appropriate as Sergeants should primarily be responsible for supervision, oversight and other tasks; not primarily used for response to calls for service.

Using this data and targets, the project team can then perform the calculation of

the current uncommitted time and also a range of uncommitted times that policy makers

may want to have as a desired goal. The calculation that is performed to determine

uncommitted time is as follows:

Uncommitted Time Percentage =

All Available Time – (Reactive Workload Time + Admin. Time)Total Available Time

The following points summarize the formula above:

› “Total Available Time” is defined as the number of Officer hours actually available in a year (or other time period).

› “Reactive Workload Time” is defined as the average total committed time per call for service, multiplied by the number of calls for service (for the same time period).

This approach provides managers and policy makers with an easily understood

(and easy to calculate) measure of the capability of the patrol workforce to provide

proactive law enforcement (the time left over once calls for service and related

workload, and administrative tasks have been handled). A more thorough and complete

calculation of overall workload for various hours of the day is provided later in this

report.



This method avoids the significant problems in other comparative staffing models

(e.g., “officers per thousand” ratio mentioned above) that do not take into consideration

the workload for Patrol Officers that is generated by a community. This approach also

provides a methodology that can easily keep pace with future growth that takes place in

the city (by factoring in a percentage growth in call for service demand). Finally, this

approach allows managers/policy makers to select an uncommitted time target that is

desired (e.g., 40% uncommitted time level), and then basing total patrol staffing on a

combination of the work that must be done (i.e., community generated calls for service)

with the uncommitted time level that is desired. Here is a recap of the model’s use and

key analytical points:

› The model makes specific provision for uncommitted time targets.

› The model can be used at any level of detail, i.e. staffing levels can be calculated for specific times of day or for specific geographical areas.

› The model uses commonly available data:

- Gross and net officer availability hours (uncommitted time).

- Calls for service counts and the time committed to these calls.

- Related additional workload, including report writing and time spent booking arrestees.

- “Administrative” tasks, such as time spent in “briefing” at the beginning of a shift, breaks, vehicle maintenance, and other tasks during a shift are counted as “available” time in the project team’s staffing calculations.

The project team used this approach in conducting the staffing calculations from

calendar year 2011 call for service data.



(3) Important Factors Regarding CAD Data and the Calculation of Committed and Uncommitted Time Levels.

The use of CAD data to calculate patrol officers work tasks will not capture all of

the duties and tasks done by Officers during their shifts due to human error and

incomplete data in the CAD call for service records (e.g. missing time stamps, the fact

that sometimes Officers do not report a task they are doing to Dispatch so it is not

logged, sometimes Dispatchers do not track all patrol tasks). This is especially true in

the first year of a thorough CAD call for service data analysis, and will be true for

subsequent years unless the agency makes concerted and consistent efforts to improve

accuracy. This is not unique to Springdale; it is common in other law enforcement

agencies’ data evaluated by the project team in other studies. The project team, based

on several hundred patrol staffing studies conducted throughout the United States,

estimates that approximately 20 – 25% of an Officer’s time that he/she is doing job

related tasks is not tracked in the CAD record (this is a general number for all police

departments that is applicable to Springdale but it was not specifically derived from the

Springdale CAD data). This number is important to remember as it means that a 20 –

25% “uncommitted time” level in the 2011 CAD data analysis is essentially a fully

committed workforce. The following summary is provided illustrating the implications of

various uncommitted time levels:

• A 20 – 25% uncommitted level reflects a patrol staff that is essentially fully committed (except during the low CFS hours of the day); this is due to CAD data not capturing all committed time or tasks required/completed by Officers.

• At this level, during most hours, Officers will be responding to CFS and will not have time for any consistent proactive or project oriented activity – the blocks of time are generally too short (less than 30 minutes) to allow for meaningful targeted patrol or working on beat projects or neighborhood issues.



• A 40% uncommitted level is generally sufficient to provide blocks of time where Officers can conduct targeted patrol, beat projects to address community issues.

• A 50% uncommitted level will afford a patrol force on most workdays to have a several hours during their shift to conduct targeted patrol, specific projects to address community issues, and other officer initiated activities.

• Uncommitted levels above 50% may provide a challenge to supervisors to keep Officers busy with meaningful work and engaged in the job.

Each community can choose an appropriate target of uncommitted time desired

for its patrol staff, based on unique needs, available funding and policing model desired.

A 40 – 50% overall average uncommitted time level is a reasonable target/goal for a

community that desires a patrol force that can provide a consistent level of proactive

services to the community. Policymakers should determine the policing level for their

community and understand the impacts of higher and lower uncommitted time levels.

Higher targeted uncommitted time levels will require more staff but also ensure that the

police force is able to provide a higher level of service to the community in the form of

proactive policing and will allow the Patrol Officer to be more involved in

issues/problems in the neighborhoods where they serve.

5. PATROL OPERATIONS COMMITTED AND UNCOMMITTED TIME IN 2011.

The workload required during various hours of the day (committed time) and the

resulting uncommitted time level of a patrol staff is the most significant factor in

determining the staffing needed to achieve the level of service desired by a City.

However, fielding a minimum number of Officers to provide for basic safety of Officers

while on patrol, and the ability of the Department to handle more than one critical

incident simultaneously are also significant factors to consider in deployment of police

resources.



It is important to have a clear understanding of what is included in the

uncommitted time calculations. Uncommitted time is the amount of an Officer’s work

hours remaining (expressed as a percentage of work hours) after handling the

community generated workload demand, this includes the time required to handle calls

for service, make arrests, book arrestees, write reports, etc.

(1) Assumptions Utilized in Calculating Uncommitted Time.

In the calculation and analysis of uncommitted time there are several analytical

assumptions that were utilized:

› Actual community generated calls for service obtained from CAD data totaled 30,326. This number excludes all Officer initiated activities (such as traffic stops); multiple unit entries, administrative activities and calls cancelled prior to an Officer being dispatched.

› Meals and other breaks are taken evenly across all hours of a shift.

› Personnel are available on an average hourly basis (i.e., in the model there are no heavy or light shift days).

› Officers are available for an average of 1,720 shift hours per year to provide all field services. This takes into account the various leave usages (e.g. vacation, sick) and training hours.

The resulting calculation shows the average level of an Officer’s uncommitted, or

discretionary, time during a shift, when they are available to handle general proactive

policing efforts in the field, targeted patrol to address a specific problem, visiting

schools, traffic enforcement, walking patrol in the downtown area, and other tasks

initiated by the Officer or directed by the Officer’s supervisor.

(2) The Percentage of Uncommitted Time Varies Throughout the Day and Should be Evaluated for Each Shift.

The table on the next page shows the calculations for uncommitted patrol time in

four-hour time blocks to assist in providing a more specific description of committed time



and uncommitted time during various times of the day. An overall percentage of

uncommitted patrol time is also shown. The average number of Officers actually on

duty during a 24 hour period was taken from the “Actual Patrol Staffing” table presented

earlier in this report. This table shows the time required to handle calls for service

during 2011.

The actual average call handling time of 21.8 minutes for the primary (1 st Officer)

and 30.2 minutes for the “back-up” Officer(s) were used in this calculation. It is unusual

that the primary Officer’s call handling time is less than that of the back-up Officers but

this time difference fits with normal patrol call handling in Springdale; staff reports that

the second Officer will often stay at the scene longer than the first Officer makes an

arrest he/she will often leave the scene to process the arrestee and the second Officer

will remain on the scene conduct the investigation and/or waiting for a tow truck.

Report writing time was estimated at 45 minutes per report and the initial booking

of a prisoner at 1 hour, 15 minutes each (this does not include other prisoner

transportation time).

The table on the next page shows the actual available staff time in 2011 and the

community generated calls for service workload (other discretionary, or Officer initiated

activity is not included in this table).



Officer Calls for Service Workload in 2011

0000 -0400

0400 -0800

0800 -1200

1200 -1600

1600 -2000

2000 – 2400 Total

Patrol Staff Allocation 13.7% 15.2% 16.8% 18.2% 19.5% 16.6% 100.0%Hours Staffed (ST + OT) 10,542 11,770 12,991 14,041 15,084 12,813 77,234Administrative Time 988 1,104 1,218 1,316 1,414 1,201 7,241Available Work Hours 9,554 10,667 11,773 12,725 13,670 11,612 69,993

Calls for Service (CFS) 3,183 2,062 5,172 6,205 7,633 6,071 30,326% of Total CFS 10.5% 6.8% 17.1% 20.5% 25.2% 20.0% 100%1st Officer Minutes / CFS 21.8 21.8 21.8 21.8 21.8 21.8 21.81st Unit Hours 1,156 749 1,879 2,254 2,773 2,206 11,018Back-Up Unit Responses 3,449 2,235 5,605 6,724 8,272 6,579 32,863Back Up Minutes / CFS 30.2 30.2 30.2 30.2 30.2 30.2 30.2Back Up Officer(s) Hours 1,736 1,125 2,821 3,384 4,163 3,311 16,541Reports Written 871 564 1,416 1,699 2,090 1,662 8,302Report Writing Hours 654 423 1,062 1,274 1,567 1,246 6,227Bookings 585 379 950 1,140 1,402 1,115 5,570Booking Hours 731 473 1,187 1,425 1,752 1,394 6,963Prisoner Transport Tasks 208 135 338 405 499 397 1,981Total Committed Hours 4,485 2,905 7,287 8,743 10,755 8,554 42,729

Total Uncommitted Hours 5,069 7,762 4,485 3,982 2,915 3,058 27,271Committed Time 46.9% 27.2% 61.9% 68.7% 78.7% 73.7% 61.0%Uncommitted Time 53.1% 72.8% 38.1% 31.3% 21.3% 26.3% 39.0%

The overall level of committed time in 2011 was an average of 61% that is

required to handle the community generated calls for service; leaving an average

uncommitted time of 39%. However, it is important to add in the estimated 20 – 25%

additional of time not captured by CAD (discussed in an earlier section) into these totals

– which equals an overall daily average of 81 – 86% committed time and an average

uncommitted time level of 14 – 19%.

During busiest hours of the day, 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM, the uncommitted time

average falls to 29.8%; this is when almost 63% of the calls for service occur. This



pattern is typical of most police departments – more calls for service during the

“daytime” hours, resulting in a high level of committed time, and fewer calls during the

“nighttime” hours which results in a higher level of uncommitted time. The high levels of

uncommitted time from midnight to 8:00 AM are common in most police agencies.

Agencies may be able to redeploy some staff to busier hours of the day but other

factors may limit management’s ability to make changes. These factors include: 1)

maintain sufficient staff to provide for safety of Officers, and 2) as part of management’s

risk management assessment, having the ability to handle more than one critical

incident with on duty staff (as during the early morning hours no other police resources

such as Traffic Units or Detectives are on duty to provide additional assistance quickly).

It is important to note that this is the first year that an evaluation of this type has

been done for patrol workload and, as already mentioned, the CAD data does not

capture all of the work done by Patrol Officers. Improvement in tracking Officers time in

CAD over the next year will provide more accurate data to conduct this same workload

analysis for 2012 and 2013 and have an increasing degree of confidence that the

results closely reflect the actual patrol workload time commitment. The workload

analysis in the second and subsequent years will also show workload trends that will

assist managers in making staffing allocation decisions.

6. PERSONNEL STAFFING REQUIREMENTS FOR PATROL.

The table on the next page uses current number of community generated calls

for service to calculate the number of Officers required for the call for service workload

in 2011. The Patrol staffing required in Springdale is driven by workload levels and the

minimum staffing needed to provide for the safety of Officers.



Staffing Projections at Various Uncommitted Time Levels Workload 2011

1. COMMUNITY GENERATED WORKLOADSCalls for service (one year) 30,326Handling Time – 1st Unit from Dispatch until Officer clears call 11,018Backup Officers 16,541Number of Reports Written 8,302Total Time for Report Writing @ 45 minutes each 6,227Number of Bookings 5,570Time to Process Bookings @ 1.25 hours each 6,963Other Prisoner Transport Tasks 1,981

Total Time Needed to Handle Workload 42,729

2. Additional Hours for Preventive Patrol & Officer Initiated ActivityTo Provide 50% Uncommitted Time Level 42,729To Provide 40% Uncommitted Time Level 28,486To Provide 30% Uncommitted Time Level 18,312

3. Total Time Required for Reactive & Proactive WorkTo Provide 50% Uncommitted Time Level 85,458To Provide 40% Uncommitted Time Level 71,215To Provide 30% Uncommitted Time Level 61,041

4. Availability of StaffAnnual Paid Work Hours 2,080Leave Hours (vacation, sick, WC, etc.) 262Training Hours (on duty only) 55Administrative Tasks – 90 min per shift (briefing, breaks, etc.) 220Net Hours Worked 1,543

5. Officers Required to Handle Workload at Desired Policing LevelsTo Provide 50% Uncommitted Time Level 55.4To Provide 40% Uncommitted Time Level 46.2To Provide 30% Uncommitted Time Level 39.6

To provide an overall average uncommitted time level of 40 – 50% in 2011,

Springdale PD needed a minimum of 47 – 56 Officers in patrol services (rounding up)

This patrol workload analysis provides police managers with valuable information

regarding workload demand when making staffing decisions but these calculations are

only one of the items of information needed when determining the total number of staff



needed and allocating staff to the different shifts – and, as pointed out in the previous

section, these figures should be reviewed and calculated for several years to develop a

consistent pattern and a higher level of reliability. Additionally, many other factors must

also be evaluated by management when determining the number of Patrol Officers

needed to effectively and safely provide patrol services in Springdale. These factors

include Officer safety considerations, size and geography of patrol areas (beats),

frequency of critical incidents, availability of mutual aid, Officers’ current leave usage,

crime activity, additional (new) tasks required of Patrol, frequency of Patrol Officers

needed to backfill as a Jailer or Bailiff, number of new Officers in FTO training,

frequency of sending Patrol Officers out of the City, additional land/population annexed

into the City, etc.

An example of this is determining a minimum staffing level for nighttime hours:

although the workload level is generally low and the uncommitted time level from

midnight through 8:00 AM is fairly high (53% from 0000-0400 and 73% from 0400-

0800), a minimum number of eight Patrol Officers are reasonably required to be

assigned to C Shift (10 PM – 6 AM) to provide adequate coverage for the entire City

area, meet Officer safety needs and have the ability to handle at least one critical

incident (requiring 4-6 Officers and a Sergeant).

Targeting an overall 50% uncommitted time level is recommended for Springdale

as it will provide additional staff that can be assigned to the 8:00 AM – 8:00 PM work

hours; which will provide the needed increase in uncommitted time that will allow more

consistent periods during their shifts to accomplish proactive activities.



In summary, a targeted overall higher service level (e.g. a 50% uncommitted time

level) requires a higher staffing level; correspondingly, fewer staff would be needed to

provide uncommitted time level at or below 40%. In Springdale, an overall target of

50% uncommitted time will allow a high amount of proactive time during the night time

hours and a reasonable amount of proactive time for Patrol Officers working between

8:00 AM and 8:00 PM, in addition to providing a good service level to calls for service.

It is also recommended that management re-deploy resources as needed to try and to

maintain a 30% uncommitted time level within each four hour time period.

In April 2012 Patrol Division had 55 Officers assigned to field services (includes

any Officers that may be on light duty). This staffing level is adequate to handle the

current workload, provide for officer safety and to have sufficient time for pro-active

activities. This is supported by the employee survey where 85% of the staff (which

included employees assigned to Patrol but also other areas of the Department) reported

that they had enough time to complete their work or had busy periods but most of the

time they were able to keep up with the workload. This staffing level is very close to the

staffing needed from the above calculations, so any reductions to the current staffing

are not recommended and as additional Officers become available, consideration

should first be given to adding them to Patrol.

Sergeants are a critical component of providing an effective patrol services

delivery system. Currently there are only two Sergeants assigned to each shift and with

their regular days off there will only be two Sergeants working the shift for three days a

week. Including other leaves and training it is common to have one Sergeant per shift

for six days of the week. In a City the size of Springdale, the number of Officers



deployed and the call for service workload it is recommended that two Sergeants be on

duty 24/7; this is in addition to the number of Officers assigned to each shift. The

calculations for the number of positions required to field two Sergeants are shown in the

following table.

Positions Required Hours PositionsHours Required to Fill One 24 Hour Position 8,760Average Annual Hours Worked / Employee 1,763Staff Required to Fill One 24 Hour Position 5.0Positions per Shift 2Total Staff Required 9.9

A total of 10 Sergeant positions on Patrol are needed to provide 24/7 shift

coverage of two Sergeants. It is reasonable to increase the number of positions to

three Sergeants per shift.

Recommendations:

Establish a City goal of an overall average time ratio of 60% committed and 40% uncommitted time for field Patrol services.

Establish a Department goal to maintain a minimum 30% uncommitted time percentage for each four hour time period of the day.

Semi-annually review patrol staff workload for each four hour time block to determine if some patrol staff should be redeployed to busier hours of the day; or if resources from other work units should be redeployed to Patrol.

Adopt a process to enhance delivery of patrol services during the periods when uncommitted time is available. The Captain, Lieutenants and Sergeants should coordinate the development of plans that identify specific tasks/projects that can be worked on or accomplished when uncommitted time is available during a shift.

Provide Patrol field supervision of two Sergeants on duty per shift.

7. TRAFFIC SAFETY OPERATIONS.



Springdale PD has two Officers, assigned to dayshift, whose primary duties are

to enforce traffic laws and investigate accidents. There are also two civilian Traffic

Accident Investigators who handle a significant number of the traffic collisions. There is

not a recommended number of dedicated Traffic Officers in a Police Department but as

traffic issues and concerns are one of the most frequent types of complaints received by

law enforcement, most agencies with a population the size of Springdale have

dedicated traffic safety unit to handle most of the traffic accident investigations and

conduct enforcement operations. The size of work units vary from one person to six or

seven staff.

Traffic Officers primarily work traffic safety related complaints throughout the City

and conduct pro-active traffic enforcement operations. They may also assist Patrol

Officers in handling calls for service when they are close to the scene of a call or during

high call volume times of the day.

The civilian Traffic Accident Investigators are responsible for low risk calls for

service such as abandoned vehicles, traffic hazards, funeral escorts, parking problems

and towing vehicles. They responded to a total of 1,773 calls for service in 2011.

These are calls for service that would require a Patrol Officer to handle if the Traffic

Accident Investigators are not working. The following table shows the number and type

of calls for service, percentage of their CFS workload and the average number of

minutes taken for each incident.

Call for Service Type Number % of Total Avg. MinutesAccident 535 30.2% 33.6Stalled Vehicle 148 8.3% 18.7Accident - Private Property 144 8.1% 29.8Parking Violation 139 7.8% 16.5Escort/Funeral Or Business 120 6.8% 41.8



Abandoned Vehicle 92 5.2% 19.9Follow Up 72 4.1% 24.3Accident W / Injury 66 3.7% 42.7Traffic Hazard 65 3.7% 19.1Accident Hit & Run 54 3.0% 27.2Private Prop Acc / H&R 51 2.9% 25.8All Other 287 16.2% NA


The total call for service workload for the Traffic Accident Investigators was

approximately 866 hours for 2011. The Traffic Accident Investigators made an

additional 871 responses to these calls for service incidents (e.g. as a second

responder) for a total of 2,644 responses to incidents in 2011. Traffic Accident

Investigators worked approximately 3,500 hours in 2011 and the 866 hours of activity

tracked on CAD is only about 25% of their work hours. The CAD system should be

used to track most of their activities.

The Traffic Accident Investigators performed approximately 120 funeral or

business escorts during the year. Most police agencies no longer perform escorts due

to the inherent liability of facilitating the passage of a motorcade through intersections

where the lights are sometimes red for the motorcade. It is recommended that

Springdale no longer perform this public service.

The primary workload for the Traffic Officers is enforcement of the traffic safety

laws and education of the public in the contacts they have during their workday.

Additionally, the Traffic Officers respond to calls for service when there is a need

because beat units are not available or when the call is traffic related call and they are

able to respond. The following two tables show the CFS activity and self initiated

activity for the two Traffic Officers in 2011.

Call Type Number Average Hours



MinutesAccident 234 36.7 143Stalled Vehicle 86 16.3 23Accident - Private Property 58 31.8 31Parking Violation 41 15.3 10Abandoned Vehicle 30 15.9 8Traffic Hazard 28 11.1 5Escort/Funeral Or Business 27 36 16Accident Hit & Run 24 29.9 12P-Prop Acc/H&R 22 28.6 10Other 200 20 (est.) 67

Total 750 326

The two Traffic Units handled 750 calls for service in 2011. The self initiated

activity for these units is shown in the following table.

Officer Initiated Event Number Average Minutes

Hours

Traffic Stop 965 7.1 113Radar 446 5.9 44Extra Patrol-Log 341 1.7 10Other 143 20 48

Total 1,895 215

These Officers worked approximately 3,500 hours in 2011 but only 541 hours, or

about 15% of their work hours were captured on CAD. The CAD system should be

used to track most of their activities. Efforts should be made to ensure that their time is

accounting of their time.

Recommendations:

End the practice of providing funeral or business escorts.

Use the CAD system, or develop another methodology, to track Traffic Officer and Traffic Accident Investigators’ assignments.



4. CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS DIVISION (CID) OPERATIONS AND WORKLOAD.

This section provides summary workload activities for investigation services. CID

is staffed with one Captain, one Lieutenant, three Sergeants and 21 Detectives. Nine of

the detectives, four in the Person Crimes Unit and five in the Property Crimes Unit, are

considered “core” investigators – their primary job is to conduct follow-up of criminal and

suspicious cases. The other 12 detectives are assigned to pro-active enforcement

units, task forces, nuisance abatement or the sex registrants tracking program.

The current organization structure in CID has one Captain and one Lieutenant

reporting to a Captain. A one-to-one reporting relationship is not advised over the long

term as the Lieutenant will become the actual leader of CID and the Captain will

become less involved in daily operations (possibly having other assignments) or

possibly be a “second boss” that provides different direction than the Lieutenant. Three

Sergeants reporting to one Lieutenant or one Captain is a normal and viable span of

control – there is not a need for a second management position in running operations.

This current CID structure is intended to be temporary and it is advisable to establish a

permanent and viable structure within the next year that eliminates the one-to-one

reporting relationship.

1. CID WORKLOAD.

The primary tasks of the Person Crimes and Property Crimes Investigators is to

follow-up on crimes or serious incidents that have occurred in Springdale. Cases are

screened and assigned by the Detective Sergeant and assignments given to the



investigators. Any cases that have a lead that would reasonably lead to a suspect

responsible for the crime are assigned to a Detective for follow-up.

The table below provides the results of the project team’s “desk audit” conducted

with each of the five current investigators. An Assigned Case is one that has been

assigned to them by the supervisor; and Active Case is where on-going follow-up

investigation is being conducted (where some investigative activity has been conducted

in the past 30 days). Each Detective also has a varying number of “pending cases”

where they are waiting for Crime Lab analysis, fingerprint comparison or it has been

sent to the prosecutor to review for criminal charges. When information on a pending

case is received it will require some additional work, become an active case again or

the case will be closed.

Detective Caseload in April 2012

DetectiveAssigned

CasesActive Cases Comments

1 8 8 Person Crimes Detective

2 8 6 Person Crimes Detective

3 5 5 Person Crimes Detective (in transition to a new assignment)

4 14 11 Property Crimes Detective

5 21 17 Property Crimes Detective

The desk audits were completed for five of the nine person or property crimes

detectives. Each investigator is typically able to begin working their cases within a few

days of it being assigned and if the case is a high priority one they will begin working on

it immediately.

The Criminal Investigations Division provides a high service level to the

community as they are well staffed. The CID staffing level allows management to



assign cases to Detectives (e.g. thefts and criminal mischief) that in many cities cannot

be assigned to a Detective due to the number of higher priority crimes requiring

investigation. Springdale Detectives generally also have the time to quickly begin their

follow-up Investigation and complete it.

As mentioned above, some Detectives are assigned to specialized tasks or work

units within CID or as part of a regional investigative task force. CID has one Detective

assigned to monitor and ensure compliance with the law for the approximately 80 sex

offender registrants in Springdale. Another Detective has just been assigned to work

internet crimes to target child sexual predators.

Two other Detective positions work in the SNAP group – Springdale Nuisance

Abatement Program. This group conducts follow-up investigations of graffiti and other

quality of life crimes in Springdale and also conducts pro-active investigations to

mitigate or resolve nuisance properties (e.g. low priced motel used by prostitutes) where

there are a high number of calls for service requiring a Patrol response.

Other Detectives (details in Appendix A) are assigned to work with several

federal enforcement efforts: the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the Drug

Enforcement Administration (DEA) Task Force and the Immigration & Customs

Enforcement group. Springdale also participates in the regional Drug Task Force with

several other Washington and Madison County law enforcement agencies. In February

2012 Springdale also started its own two person Drug Enforcement within CID that

reports to the Narcotics/Nuisance Abatement Unit Sergeant.



These are worthwhile efforts in pro-actively addressing crime issues and crime

trends in the northwest Arkansas region. Some of these assignments are grant funded

positions so the City only has minimal financial costs for these assignments.

2. CRIME DATA IN SPRINGDALE.

Since 1929 law enforcement agencies have reported crime occurring in their City

to the FBI, who collected the data nationally it a format know as the Uniform Crime

Reporting (UCR) system. It is published and used for many purposes, including as a

benchmark for Cities of similar population or location for comparison. Several years

ago the FBI developed an expanded crime reporting system known as the National

Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). The FBI and law enforcement agencies are

in a multi-year transition from the UCR system to the NIBRS. Approximately 25% of law

enforcement agencies have made the transition to the NIBRS. Springdale began

reporting in the NIBRS format in 2008. However, the FBI continues to publish crime

and clearance data in the UCR format and it still is commonly used for comparison

purposes – for historical averages within a City and also in comparison with other Cities.

However, NIBRS reporting agencies crime data is converted to UCR data by the FBI

and published. The reporting agency does not have direct knowledge regarding the

accuracy of their converted crime statistics – this is the current situation for Springdale

PD. It won’t be until after the conversion to the NIBRS is complete and several years of

historical comparison. During this transition time the normal crime comparisons with

other agencies will likely be unreliable. However, year to year internal comparisons can

be made with reliable as the agency has the raw reporting data.



For this report the project team obtained the UCR crime data for calendar years

2008 - 2011. They are listed in the following table.

UCR Part I Crimes and Crime Rate2

Crime 2008 2009 2010 2011 % Change 2010 to

2011

2009-2011 Average

Homicide 1 0 0 1 100% 0.3Forcible Rape 65 56 68 97 43% 74Robbery 21 25 18 24 33% 22Aggravated Assault 208 207 239 231 (3%) 226Burglary 587 486 373 438 17% 432Larceny – All 1,790 1,828 1,631 2,232 37% 1897Motor Vehicle Theft 150 99 125 116 (7%) 113Arson 20 11 7 14 100% 11Total 2,842 2,712 2,461 3,153 28% 2,775Violent Crime 295 288 325 353 9% 322Property Crime 2,527 2,413 2,129 2,786 31% 2,443

From 2010 to 2011 the City of Springdale experienced a 9% increase in violent

crime and a 31% increase in property crime. This is a significant increase in crime in a

year and it is very important to monitor and evaluate monthly counts to determine if this

was a one year spike in crime or a continuing trend in Springdale. If crime has

continued to increase in 2012 the Department should evaluate strategies to address the

increase and attempt to reduce crimes occurring.

The table on the following page shows Springdale’s violent crime rate compared

to the Cities of Fayetteville and Rogers (2008 – 2010 data) and also to the national

average for Cities with a population between 50,000 and 100,000 residents.

2 All 2008 – 2010 crime data was obtained from the FBI website (which originates from SPD); the 2011 crime data was obtained directly from SPD (the FBI has not yet published 2011 crime data).



Violent Crime Rate Comparisons

2008 2009 2010 3 Year Average

Springdale 423 406 457 429Fayetteville 451 433 414 432Rogers 248 310 357 306National Average 451 426 395 424

Springdale’s violent crime rate is similar to Fayetteville and the national average.

The following table shows Springdale’s violent crime rate compared to the Cities

of Fayetteville and Rogers and also to the national average.

Property Crime Rate Comparisons

2008 2009 2010 3 Year Average

Springdale 3,622 3,402 2.992 3,339Fayetteville 3,726 3,871 3,466 3,683Rogers 3,390 3,662 3,294 3,447National Average 3,552 3,336 3,219 3,369

The property crime rate for Springdale is the lowest of the three Cities and is also

slightly lower than the national average.

Another significant statistic is the clearance rate of crimes committed in

Springdale. The number of crimes cleared is a significant measure of the effectiveness

of the Criminal Investigation Division as it is their primary task to follow-up criminal

cases and “clear” the case by identifying the perpetrator of the crime and making an

arrest of possible. Clearance statistics are kept by the Criminal Investigations Division

but in a different format than is used for reporting clearance data to the State of

Arkansas Crime Information Center (who report it to the FBI). The internal clearance

statistics provide valuable information of performance and effectiveness of an

investigations unit. It is commonly used as a performance measure and to compare



with other regional Cities. When the transition to the NIBRS is complete and national

clearance rate data is published by the FBI it should be used to compare with

Springdale’s crime clearance rate.

3. CID CASE MANAGEMENT AND CLEARANCE RATE STATISTICS.

The Lieutenant and Sergeants in CID review almost all incoming criminal cases

to determine if the case has investigative leads and warrants being assigned to a

Detective. Springdale uses and electronic case management system to review, assign

and track cases. This is an excellent use of available technology and is an efficient way

to manage the CID caseload. Investigators also use it to track their assigned cases.

CID maintains statistical information on the number of cases reviewed and

assigned to CID investigators. Although this data is only tracked by CID and is not to be

considered official Springdale PD statistics, it does provide good and reasonably

accurate information regarding case workload and resolution of CID assigned cases.

The table below shows the number of cases worked and clearances made over the last

three years.

CID Case Investigations 2009 2010 2011Reports Reviewed 7,644 7,397 7,779Cases Assigned to Investigators 2,017 3,323 4,549

ClearancesCleared - Arrest Made 235 229 322Cleared – Unfounded 94 31 57Cleared – Exceptional (i.e. Other) 80 50 91Turned Over To Prosecutor's Office 307 1,203 810

Total Number 716 1,513 1,280Cases Cleared Percentage 35.5% 45.5% 28.1%

Cases Changed to Inactive (no further leads) 546 994 2,412Still Assigned to a Detective (Active Case) 852 854 857



The total number of cases reviewed and assigned for follow-up has increased in

each of the last three years while the staffing has remained approximately the same.

The number of cases cleared, changed to inactive and still assigned is slightly off for the

listed total number of “cases assigned” in 2009 and 2010 but totals exactly in 2011.

This statistical information is helpful to provide a historical trend if it is tracked

and reported the same way over multiple years. However, this does not provide as

specific data of what types of cases were cleared (violent crimes, property crimes, “non-

reportable” crimes, etc.) that can be used for comparison with other law enforcement

agencies. This will only happen when the conversion to the NIBRS is complete and that

will not likely be for another five years or more. Until then, it would be an improvement

to this data to track the clearances separately into the following three categories:

reportable violent crimes, reportable property crimes, and other crimes.



5. SERVICES DIVISION.The Services Division has three work units – Records, Detention and Fleet. A

brief description of each unit is provided below.

1. RECORDS UNIT.

The Records Unit is open to the public from 0800-1700 hours Monday – Friday.

This Unit is staffed with one Records Clerk Office Manager and five Records Clerks who

all work Monday-Friday. The Records Units answers the business phone line for the

Department, 479.756.8200, and serves people at the front counter. The primary work

tasks include:

• Processing traffic accident reports, traffic citations, tow reports

• Processing arrest reports and sends them to the Court

• Sending copies of reports to Detectives (e.g. felony arrest reports)

• Processing Freedom of Information requests

• Processing false alarm bills

• Process Department bills, order supplies, conducting inventory

• Processing taxi cab and ice cream vendor permits

• Processing travel reservations for employees

• Processing grant paperwork for Department grants

• Assisting in the mayor’s office as needed

The Records Unit does not keep any specific workload statistics. The people

working in this unit work together as a group, are familiar with aspects of each others’

specific work tasks (cross-trained) and area a well functioning work unit that provides a

high level of service to the community and internal customers.



2. DETENTION UNIT.

This work unit is supervised by a Sergeant who oversees the Jail staff, Warrants

Officer and Property/Evidence Officer.

(1) Jail Staffing and Facility.

The Springdale Police Department maintains its own jail facility and rents out a

large portion of their jail to the Arkansas Department of Correction. The Department of

Correction uses two dormitory type rooms that have 48 beds. The remaining portion of

the jail is used by Springdale PD to book, process and house PD prisoners. The facility

has three cells that have four bunk beds each and a drunk tank that can hold up to 25

people. It also has two small rooms that can hold females for a few hours (must be

supervised). The jail does not meet current jail building standards but is able to operate

under a “grandfather” clause because no significant remodeling has occurred. The

Department of Correction will be relocating to another facility in the next year and then

Springdale PD will have control of and responsibility for the entire facility.

The Jail processes persons arrested by Springdale officers – 5,570 in 2011. Due

to the location of the municipal Court in Springdale additional prisoners pass through

the Springdale Jail during the day in transit from County Jail to court appearances. This

increases the workload on both A and B Shifts and requires additional staffing to

process the prisoners in a timely manner. People making court appearances are

sometimes remanded into custody by the judge and Springdale Jailers must process

them also. These additional prisoners that were booked and/or processed by Jailers in

2011 bring the overall total to 9,345 persons. The Jail also houses prisoners and over

the last three years the jail prisoner population averaged 17 inmates in 2010 and 15 in



2011. Through the first three months of 2012 the prisoner population averaged 16.5

inmates per day.

The jail is staffed with nine full time civilian Jailers, three per shift. This is

intended to provide a staffing level of two Jailers on each of the three shifts.

Additionally, if additional prisoners are housed in the Jail when DOC leaves, the current

staffing level will be insufficient. The number of staff needed will be dependent upon the

number of prisoners housed in the facility.

Although Jailers have a high attrition rate their overall leave usage rate is low, as

shown in the following table that lists the average number of leave hours taken –

vacation, injury, sick, funeral and compensatory time off.

Average of 2010 & 2011 Hours Work HoursTotal Paid Annual Work Hours 2,080Average Leave Usage 141Net Work Hours 1,939% Annual Availability 93.2%

Over the last two years the Jailers have only used an average of 141 hours of

leave, working 93% of their paid hours. This is a significantly high number of actual

work hours and a significant positive factor for the City of Springdale as it reduces

overall staffing costs.

Springdale currently has nine Jailer positions in order to staff a minimum of two

positions per shift. Using this staffing level and the current work hours per employee

only nine positions are needed but because of the high attrition rate “over hire” positions

should be staffed. The calculations for the number of positions required are shown in

the table below.



Positions Required Hours PositionsHours Required to Fill One 24 Hour Position 8,760Average Annual Hours Worked / Employee 1,939Staff Required to Fill One 24 Hour Position 4.5Positions per Shift 2Sub-Total of Staff Required 9.0Attrition @ 29.6% (“Over hire” positions) 2.7Total Staff Required 11.7

An additional two to three Jailer positions are needed to provide 24/7 coverage of

the Jail with two Jailers. Adding the additional Jailer positions will provide a sufficient

staffing at the current rate of attrition and if the attrition rate can be reduced the total

number of positions needed will be less. The attrition rate of Jailers has already been

mentioned earlier in this report – it is the most significant issue relating to efficient jail

operations. It not only impacts the Detention Unit but impacts Patrol Division as a Patrol

Officer will be assigned to staff the Jail to maintain a minimum staffing of two.

(2) Evidence and Property.

One employee is assigned to handle the evidence and property functions for the

Department, he reports to the Detention Unit Sergeant. His primary duties include

receiving all evidence booked by Officers and ensuring it is properly packaged/stored;

transporting evidence requiring processing to the crime lab in Little Rock; ensuring the

Mobile Video/Audio Recording (MVAR) system is uploaded from the patrol cars into the

storage system; keeping related supplies stocked; purging evidence and property.

One person can handle most of the day to day routine tasks but it is important for

the Evidence Officer to have another person trained to fill in for him as needed. He also

needs assistance whenever purging of evidence, guns and drugs is done.



Routine audits of the property room are not currently conducted but should be

conducted every year or every six months (checking a portion of the evidence and

property, not a complete audit).

The property/evidence room is alarmed and the hard keys are limited to very few

people. The room is too small for the current volume of items stored – it does not have

sufficient shelves for all of the boxes, requiring the Evidence Officer to frequently move

items around to store new items. Additional storage space is available in the fleet

garage but the security of the building is lacking as it is not alarmed nor climate

controlled.

(3) Warrants Officer.

One Officer was assigned in February 2012 to conduct follow-up on Springdale

warrants to try and have the subjects self surrender and take care of the warrant or to

arrest them. This position is assisted by the Department’s Terminal Agency Coordinator

in the clerical functions. In the first month 127 warrants were able to be served as the

direct result of this effort.

3. FLEET UNIT.

This work unit is supervised by a Sergeant who oversees two staff (Fleet

Manager and the Mechanic), manages the fleet/equipment for the Department,

conducts other facilities related tasks and also is tasked with a variety of research

projects for the Department.

The tasks that take up most of the Fleet Sergeant’s time are researching vehicles

to purchase and/or equipment for the vehicles or Department (e.g. light bars, radios,

uniforms, weapons); assignment of fleet and take home cars; reviewing the monthly



inspections of the vehicles and processing repair requests. Since the Department does

not have an in-house facilities unit, the Fleet Unit has been tasked with other projects

such as researching a BBQ trailer for the Department and a wash room project.

This work unit accomplishes the specific tasks directly related to the fleet and

equipment but also many other miscellaneous tasks. While it is helpful to have law

enforcement experience as background for some of these tasks it is not mandatory and

a civilian in this position would be able to accomplish the job at a lower personnel cost.

Recommendations:

Add two-three Jailer positions to adequately staff the Jail with two Jailers 24/7.

Conduct sample audits of the property/evidence room annually or every six months.

Convert the Fleet Sergeant position to a civilian staff position.



6. ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION.The Dispatch Center and Records Unit provide essential field support functions

and other critical tasks for the department. The Dispatch Unit is part of the

Administrative Division and the Records Unit is part of the Services Division.

1. DEPARTMENT CRIME REPORTING AND DISPATCHING SERVICES.

This unit is managed by Dispatch Supervisor/NIBRS Manager (National Incident

Based Reporting System). The majority of this manager’s time is spent coordinating

and providing quality control of the Department’s crime reporting information. The

Terminal Agency Coordinator for the PD also reports to this manager.

The Dispatch Center operates out of a large second floor room and provides

communications services for Springdale PD and FD; it also dispatches for eight other

small fire departments (Bethel Heights, Elm Springs, Lowell, Sonora, Pleasure Heights,

Hickory Creek, Tonitown and Johnson).

The Dispatch Center has six fully equipped work stations that can be used for

either police or fire dispatching. Springdale PD has a primary radio channel (channel 1)

that is used for primary dispatching of calls for service and officer self-initiated activity, a

second channel for running person and vehicle want checks (channel 2) and two other

dedicated frequencies available for use. The fire department has two main radio

channels – channel 1 for primary use in the main geographical area of Springdale and

channel 2 for the rural areas. They also have three additional “tactical” channels for

emergency incidents.

The primary areas of Dispatcher workload and the data for 2011 are listed below:

• Answering incoming telephone calls – 189,996 in 2011 and 21,457 of these were 9-1-1 calls.



• Processing and handling fire calls for service (including pre-arrival instructions for medical emergencies) – a total of 6,745.

• Processing and handling police calls for service – 30,216 community generated calls for service and an additional 32,849 responses by other personnel.

• Processing and handling 1,773 calls for service handled by the civilian Traffic Accident Investigators and an additional 871 responses by other personnel.

• Processing and handling 58,586 police officer self initiated events (some of these, e.g. “extra patrol-log” may be performed by the officer using the CAD terminal in the patrol car).

• Performing the additional tasks request by units in the field.

The authorized Dispatch staffing is 22 – three Senior Dispatchers and 19

Dispatchers. Dispatchers work the same shift schedule as Patrol; each shift is assigned

one Senior Dispatcher and six or seven Dispatchers. Both Senior Dispatchers and

Dispatchers perform the same job functions but the Senior Dispatchers also are the shift

supervisors and perform additional administrative tasks. Currently, Senior Dispatchers

must perform these tasks while performing as a dispatcher as “administrative time” is

not built into their schedule and shift staffing normally requires them to perform

dispatching tasks their entire shift.

Each shift is intended to be staffed with four Dispatchers (including the Senior

Dispatcher), they are assigned to the following functions:

• Police Channel 1 (all Patrol and Detectives) – primary task is to handle the radio traffic.

• Police Channel 2 – primary task is to handle request from Patrol Officers and Detectives (e.g. registration, drivers’ license and warrant checks).

• Fire Dispatcher – primary tasks are to answer incoming telephone calls and to dispatch fire calls (Springdale and the other Departments).



• Fourth Dispatcher – will typically help out the Fire Dispatcher but also incoming phone calls, computer checks for Patrol, etc; also will provide relief to the other three positions for personal breaks and meal breaks.

Over the last several years the normal staffing of four has been reduced to three

approximately half of the time. Because of this Dispatchers frequently eat their meal at

the dispatching console.

As shown earlier in the report, the attrition rate has varied from a low of 23% in

2009, to 32% in 2010 and to 36% in 2011. This instability in the work force requires a

significant amount of time in hiring, processing and training a new employee to meet

minimum proficiency performance standards. It also requires the remaining employees

to work extra hours to meet minimum staffing levels.

Although Dispatchers have a high attrition rate their leave usage rate is low, as

shown in the following table that lists the average number of leave hours taken –

vacation, injury, sick, funeral and compensatory time off.

Average of 2010 & 2011 Hours Work HoursTotal Paid Annual Work Hours 2,080Average Leave Usage 226Net Work Hours 1,854% Annual Availability 89.2%

Over the last two years the Dispatchers have used an average of 226 hours of

leave, working 89% of their paid hours. This is a higher number of actual work hours

than typically seen in Dispatch work units and is a positive factor for the Department as

it reduces overall staffing and overtime costs.

The project team calculated the number of positions required to maintain the

current staffing level of 22 positions (to provide four positions per shift), they are shown

in the following table.



Positions Required Hours PositionsHours Required to Fill One 24 Hour Position 8,760Average Annual Hours Worked / Employee 1,854Staff Required to Fill One 24 Hour Position 4.7Positions per Shift 4Sub-Total of Staff Required 18.9Attrition @ 30.6% (“Over hire” positions) 5.7Total Staff Required 24.6

At the current 1,854 work hours per employee only 19 positions are needed but

because of the high attrition rate “over hire” positions should be staffed. An additional

three Dispatcher positions are needed to provide 24/7 coverage of four dispatching

positions (one Senior and three Dispatchers). Additionally, the additional Dispatchers

will provide some administrative time away from the console for Senior Dispatchers to

provide supervision, coaching and administrative tasks – with a Dispatch unit the size of

Springdale it is reasonable to provide 25% of a Senior Dispatchers’ time (2 hours per

shift) for this purpose.

If the attrition rate can be reduced the total number of positions required will be

correspondingly less.

Recommendation:

Add three Dispatcher positions to adequately staff the Dispatch Center with four positions 24/7.

2. INTERNAL AFFAIRS AND TRAINING.

This unit is staffed with three positions – one Lieutenant, the Training Sergeant

and a Training Officer.

The Lieutenant’s primary job tasks include:

• Conducting internal affairs investigations as assigned.

• Reviewing all defensive actions, or use of force incidents.



• Input of data and monitoring of “IA Track”, a software program and early warning system; and providing quarterly reports for command staff.

• Field Training Officer program management.

• Training functions for firearms and defensive tactics.

• Coordination of off duty security jobs such as the University of Arkansas football games.

The following table lists information about the internal affairs and inquiry

investigations that have been conducted over the last three years.



2009 2010 2011Externally Generated 7 1 1Internally Generated 5 4 8

Total 12 5 9Primary Allegation:Battery (3rd Degree) 1Dereliction of Duty 1Misconduct 6 2 2Excessive Force 4 4Harassment, Hostile Work Environment 1 1In Custody Death 1Theft of Property 1 1Weapons Discharge 1

Total 12 5 9Findings on All Allegations:Administratively Closed 1 1Exonerated 1 1Investigation Closed 1Not Sustained 4Other 1 2Sustained 5 8 3Unfounded 9 5

Total 20 17 5Action Taken:No Action Necessary 15 2 9Remedial Training 1Suspended 2 3Terminated 1Verbal Counseling or Reprimand 3Written Reprimand 2 1 2

Total 20 5 16

The number of complaints ranged from 5 to 12 in this three year period – they

can vary widely from year to year. The number in Springdale is fairly typical for an

agency the size of Springdale.

The Lieutenant works closely with the Training Sergeant to plan and implement

training events in the PD; however, the Sergeant has the primary responsibility for these

tasks.



Each year the Training Unit plans and puts on a three day in-house training

course to provide perishable skills training. It is typically repeated three times (October,

November and December) so that all members of the Department can be scheduled to

attend. In 2011 about 99% of the sworn employees attended the course. The classes

are intended to provide refresher training on basic perishable skills but also higher level

classes that require special equipment, settings and/or a low instructor/student ratio

(e.g. a lethal force decision making and deployment class; low light firearms class).

The Training Unit also posts information for Officers about outside training

classes that are available as PD management encourages Officers to apply for special

skills training classes that are of interest to them and relevant to their job. When an

Officer applies to go to an outside course the Training Unit facilitates the approval and

paperwork.

The amount and quality of training that Springdale officers receive, an average of

55 hours annually, is impressive for any agency and particularly being able to

accomplish this amount of training with a small staff.

The Training Unit also conducts new Officer recruiting events, the testing process

and conducts the background investigations of candidates.

3. PUBLIC INFORMATION, COMMUNITY OUTREACH AND SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS.

This unit is staffed with seven staff positions – one Lieutenant and six School

Resource Officers. The Lieutenant’s primary job tasks include:

• Supervision of the School Resource Officers – contact with them and reviewing their reports; maintaining good relationships with the school administrators.

• Reviewing all reports of incidents and preparing a press release if appropriate (approximately 100 annually).



• Media relations – interviews, phone calls.

• Coordinating with the schools for security at sporting events at the schools.

• Staffing a booth to provide SPD information at special events (e.g. Cinco de Mayo, festivals); hosting outside visitors.

The Lieutenant is also developing school security plans (map, photos) to assist

patrol in the events of incidents at schools.

The School Resource Officers are assigned to five different schools: two at the

Springdale High School, one at Har-Ber High School and three at different junior high

schools. The PD receives reimbursement from the schools for the SROs salary and

benefits for 10 months of the year; the City pays for Officer’s equipment and training.

In 2011 the Lieutenant and SROs gave a total of 32 crime prevention related

presentations to various groups.



APPENDIX A – POLICE DEPARTMENT STAFFING, ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

This descriptive profile of the Springdale Police Department (SPD) Staffing Study

provides information regarding the current organization and operations of the SPD using

information collected in March and April 2011. The information contained in this profile

was developed through interviews of SPD management and personnel, review of

documents, call for service data, investigator “desk audits” and other data provided to

the project team. The profile summarizes the organization’s staffing, job

responsibilities, functions and statistical information about some Department functions

(e.g. patrol response to calls for service).

This profile is organized as follows:

• Overview and Staffing Levels

• Personnel Roles and Responsibilities

• Field Operations Staffing and Workload

• Criminal Investigations Division Staffing and Workload

• Description of Administrative and Support Units

The first section, which follows, provides a brief introduction and basic overview

of the City of Springdale and law enforcement services.

1. OVERVIEW AND STAFFING LEVELS.

The Springdale Police Department provides a wide range of law enforcement

services for approximately 70,000 residents, covering 31 square miles. From 2000 to

2010 Springdale’s population grew from 45,798 to 69,797 according to the U.S. Census

Bureau, an increase of 52% in the ten year span.



To provide law enforcement services in Springdale, the Police Department

managers share responsibilities for field patrol services, investigations, support services

and administrative services between the four Captains. The following sections provide

a summary of the organization, patrol, and staffing levels of the SPD.

The police department has a total of 125 sworn and 48 civilian positions

authorized and budgeted positions (full-time equivalents or FTEs). Employees are

deployed in the following areas as shown below:

Division Authorized Positions Vacant PositionsSworn Civilian Sworn Civilian

Office of the Chief 1 1Administration 11 24 3Service 4 18Patrol 84 3 3C.I.D. (Investigations) 25 2Total 125 48 3 3

The vacant positions are three Officers in Patrol and three Dispatchers.

The following section lists the job responsibilities and tasks for each position in

the organization.



2. PERSONNEL ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

The table below provides a summary of the primary roles and responsibilities of

the personnel within the SPD:

Division / Function

Classification and Authorized Staffing

Key Roles and Responsibilities

Office of the Chief Chief 1 • Provides the overall leadership, guidance, management and administration of the Department personnel and police services.

• Manages and coordinates all police services in the City to meet objectives set by the Mayor and City Council.

• Develops Department policies and procedures.• Responsible for overall management of risk in the

Department.• Supervises the Captains.• Develops and maintains good working

relationships with other managers in the City and peers in the regional and state law enforcement community.

• Develops and maintains good working relationships with local business leaders, community leaders and school officials.

• Performs routine administrative functions in the day to day management of the Department.

• Works dayshift hours Monday-Friday.

Office of the Chief Chief’s Secretary 1 • Provides secretarial and office administrative assistance to the Chief of Police and Captains.

• Performs a variety of office administrative tasks, including the maintenance of records and files, scheduling appointments, answering phones.

• Coordinates submission of timecards to payroll.• Transcribes internal affairs reports.• Special projects as assigned.• Works 0800-1700 hours Monday-Friday.



Division / Function



Patrol Division

Criminal Investigations Division (CID)

Services Division

Administration Division

Captain (one in each Division)

4 • Leads and manages the department to deliver police services.

• Develops and implements Department policies, procedures, goals and objectives.

• Works closely with the Chief to accomplish the goals of the Department.

• Responsible for management of risk in the Department.

• Directly supervise Lieutenants in the Division; Sergeants in the Service Division and also a Dispatch Supervisor in the Administrative Division.

• Overall responsibility for the proper functioning and work output of their assigned Division.

• Directly oversee activities and provide assistance as appropriate, responds to major incidents and emergencies.

• Oversees and participates in the development of the annual budget; monitors expenditures.

• Performs routine administrative functions, approves bill payment, equipment purchases, etc.

• Conducts special projects as appropriate.• May assume command of the Department in the

absence of the Chief.• Works 0800-1700 hours Monday-Friday.

Administration Lieutenant, Public Information Officer

1 • Reviews all reports of incidents and prepares a press release (96 in 2011).

• Responds to requests from the media for information and interviews.

• Supervises the School Resource Officers and their work at the schools; makes contact with school administrators to ensure their school security needs are being met.

• Conducts public education and community relations events (e.g. speaks at PTA meetings; events such as Cinco de Mayo, July 4 festivals, etc.)

• Coordinates security for sports events and dances.• Special projects (e.g. developing a school map to

number doors and take photos of the schools to assist in emergency incidents).

• Works 0800-1700 Monday-Friday.



Division / Function



Administration School Resources Officer

6 • Assigned to provide primary coverage for the high schools in Springdale. Spends most of the time at their assigned high school or junior high schools.

• Provides positive police presence at the schools; handles calls for service and other incidents.

• Make presentations to school classes; teach a specific “Law Academy” course at Springdale High School.

• Regularly works with the school personnel to answer questions, provide information.

• Assigned by CID to conduct follow-up on cases related to schools or possible student involvement.


Administration Lieutenant, Internal Affairs

1 • Supervises the Training Sergeant and has overall responsibility for training in the Department.

• Reviews all PD use of force (i.e. defensive actions).

• Investigates Internal Affairs cases as assigned by the Chief (approximately 60% of work hours).

• Manages the FTO Program and monitors the training of new Officers.

• Coordinates off duty security jobs for U of A football games and other sports events.


Administration Training:SergeantOfficer

11

• Coordinates all new officer (academy liaison), in-service continual professional training conducted by the PD and all special skills training (away courses).

• Conducts recruiting and new Officer testing process; conducts all background investigations.

• Coordinates 230 hours of instruction (out of 420 hours) at each new officer Academy; teaches part of those hours.

• Coordinates travel arrangements for officers training courses.

• Ensures paperwork for training classes is submitted to the state.

• Enters Officers’ training class records in the database.




Division / Function



Administration Dispatch Supervisor / NIBRS

1 • Management of the dispatching functions and supervision of dispatch staff.

• Provides counseling and discipline as necessary.• Prepares and monitors budget for

Communications.• Researches Department data and other sources to

produce a wide variety of statistical and other reports requested by administration.

• Major portion of the work week required to complete the Departments quality control of police incident reports for compliance with the FBI’s National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS).


Administration - Dispatch

SeniorDispatcher

3 • Senior Dispatchers supervise the Center and are also working dispatchers; performing all of the tasks listed below in the Dispatcher section.

• Monitor and supervise Dispatchers on their shift; approve time off.

• Ensure all shifts are staffed and tasks performed, maintain shift schedules and logs.

• Coaches, counsels Dispatchers in their job performance; write annual evaluations.

• Repairs or schedules repairs of all equipment: CAD, radio system, telephone system, etc.

• Makes copies of audio recordings of radio or other communications.

• Makes appropriate notifications for large scale or critical incidents.

• Reports call and phone call statistics monthly.• Assists with hiring process for new dispatchers;

monitors/supervises their training program.



Division / Function



Administration - Dispatch

Dispatcher 19 • Provides the call-taking and dispatching services for the City of Springdale.

• Answers 9-1-1 calls (six incoming 911 lines and three incoming seven digit emergency lines) and determines appropriate response for the call.

• Answers other incoming telephone lines (five non-emergency lines and five other business lines).

• Uses the computer aided dispatch (CAD) system to create cases, monitor calls for service and provide appropriate disposition to all calls.

• Dispatches Officers to calls for service and performs related requests by Officers.

• Uses law enforcement computer systems to provide information to Officers as appropriate.

• Provides fire dispatching and communication services for Springdale FD and 8 other small or volunteer fire departments in the area.

• Performs data entry of field information cards; data entry for missing persons, stolen vehicles.

• Staffs the dispatch center 24 hours a day.• Dispatchers work an 8 hours shift – same hours as

the patrol schedule (0600-1400; 1400-2200 or 2200-0600).

Note: 2 of the positions are vacant as of May 2012.

Administration Terminal Agency Coordinator

1 • Responsible to ensure compliance with Arkansas automated state records database and criminal history files access by Springdale PD.




Division / Function



Services – Records

Records Clerk Office Manager

1 • Responsible for managing and directing all work for Records Unit.

• Manages and supervises the file maintenance system for all police records and related documents.

• Ensures completion of crime report processing, data entry and distribution of reports.

• Receives and processes Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.

• Develops policies and procedures; plans, organizes and administers law enforcement records and information systems.

• Coordinates maintenance and pays bills associated with operations.

• Manages accounts payable for PD, petty cash; Department fuel cards; orders supplies.

• Assists with budget preparation for Services Division.

• Supervises the Records Clerks and evaluates their performance.

• Performs special assignments as appropriate, such as the archiving of old files.

• Works 0800-1700 hours Monday-Friday.

Services – Records

Records Clerk 5 • Front counter reception desk is open to the public from 0800-1700 Monday thru Friday and is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

• Processes all crime reports, arrest reports, citations and field interview cards written by Officers; distributes citations to the court.

• Responsible for handling all in-person and requests received in the mail, processing the requests and making copies of reports for members of the public.

• Receives and processes cash bonds for bail.• Receives and processes Freedom of Information

(FOI) requests; background checks for military personnel, etc.

• Enter data from police report and citations into the RMS computer system.

• Answers main Department phone number, distributes mail coming in to the Department.

• Work 0800-1700 Monday-Friday.



Division / Function



Services Sergeant, Detention

1 • Supervises Jail staff, Warrants Officer, Evidence & Property Officer.

• Reviews property room and safe audits, assists with evidence destruction.

• Reviews jail video and jail logs; approves Jailer paperwork.

• Handles prisoner grievances.• Updates written policies – primarily jail and

evidence related.• Special projects as assigned (e.g. electronic

fingerprint system).• Works 0800-1700 Monday-Friday.

Services Jailer 9 • Civilian positions, report to the Detention Sergeant.• Book persons arrested by Officers.• Process “walk-in” bookings for warrants.• Maintain security of Jail and inmates; responsible

for prisoner property room.• Take inmates to Court next door for appearances.• Accept persons remanded into custody by the

Court.• Receives and processes cash bonds for bail.• Data entry of police officer field contact forms.• Handles the inmate work release and trustee

program.• Stores and distributes inmate medication.• Each shift is assigned three Jailers; they each

have different days off.

Services - Warrants

Officer 1 • Enters warrants into the computer system; updates PD warrant book.

• Reviews warrants and makes contact with subject to self surrender; also makes arrests to serve warrants (127 served in February 2012, the first month this position has been staffed).

• Transports prisoners to/from County Jail, assists as bailiff in court when assigned.




Division / Function



Services – Evidence & Property

Evidence Technician

1 • Civilian position; reports to the Detention Sergeant.• Responsible for receiving, logging, classifying,

storing, and maintaining the custody and control of evidence so that it can be presented in court; returned to its rightful owner; auctioned, or properly destroyed.

• Computer data entry, filing of hard copy evidence forms and processing the evidence for storage or transfer to the State Crime lab in Little Rock.

• Monitors the automatic upload of Mobile Video Audio Recording (MVAR) police car video files to ensure it is completed successfully; repairs equipment if it fails.

• Entry to the property room is secure and with limited access.

• Orders and replenishes supplies for property and evidence packaging.


Services – Fleet Sergeant

Fleet Manager

Police Mechanic

1

1

1

• Sergeant supervises the two fleet employees; supervises Porters (inmates providing maintenance services for City facilities).

• Conducts research projects relating to vehicles and building needs; purchases vehicles for PD.

• Responsible for purchases and maintenance of mobile and portable radios.

• Handles auction of PD vehicles, equipment or evidence.

• Reviews monthly patrol car inspection reports and coordinates needed vehicle repairs; handles any claims involved in fleet accidents.

• Orders all employee’s equipment and supplies.• Coordinates permits for taxi cabs, tow trucks, ice

cream vendors; the mechanic perform the vehicle inspection.

• The Fleet Manager and Mechanic perform all of the routine service and many of the repairs on the PD fleet; track repairs and vehicle usage.

• Perform or assist in building repair projects or other needs relating to facilities.




Division / Function



Patrol Lieutenant

Secretary

3

1

• Serves as the Watch Commander during the work shift; ensures there is adequate staffing to handle calls in the field and dispatch center.

• Responsible for and supervises Sergeants during their shift, ensure field resources are being utilized properly to address problems in the City.

• Responds to major incidents and coordinates field responses as appropriate; mitigates complaints from members of the public.

• Supervises the Jail and Jailers after 1700-0800 hours and on weekends.

• Keeps Captains and Chief informed of significant or newsworthy incidents.

• Reviews written work and reports of Sergeants and Officers.

• Trains, counsels, mentors and audits Sergeants performance; takes corrective or disciplinary action as necessary.

• Receives and handles complaints from members of the public.

• Secretaries provide clerical support and transcription to investigations work group.

• Lts. work an 8 hour shift with fixed work days; the secretary works 0800-1700 Monday-Friday.

Patrol Sergeant 6 • Serves as the Watch Commander during the work shift in the absence of the Lieutenant; ensures there is adequate staffing to handle calls in the field and dispatch center.

• Responsible for and supervises personnel during their shift, ensure field resources are being utilized properly to address problems in the City.

• Coordinates field responses, responds to calls for service, provides back-up assistance and other field assistance as necessary, supervises and conducts field investigations, mitigates complaints from members of the public.

• Keeps Lieutenant, Captain and Chief informed of significant or newsworthy incidents.

• Reviews written work and reports of Officers.• Trains, counsels, mentors and audits Officers’

performance; takes corrective or disciplinary action as necessary.

• Works an 8 hour shift with fixed work days.



Division / Function



Patrol Police Officer(assigned to street patrol services)

63 • Respond to all calls for service in the city, including crimes against persons, property crimes, domestic disputes, traffic collisions, disturbances.

• Provide direct field enforcement of all applicable laws and ordinances.

• Write reports; conduct preliminary investigations of crime, conducts follow-up investigations as appropriate, book prisoners, transport prisoners.

• Engage in neighborhood patrols, directed patrol, traffic enforcement and other proactive activities to reduce crime.

• Respond to questions, concerns and requests from the general public and provides information and problem resolution as necessary.

• Identify and address both criminal and quality of life issues on their beat.

• One Officer on each shift is assigned as the Station Officer each day.

Note: 2 of the positions are vacant as of May 2012.

Patrol - SNAP / Crime Prevention

Police Officer 2 • Based in Patrol but assigned to the Narcotics/Nuisance Abatement Unit in CID and supervised by that CID Sergeant.

• Responsible for follow-up investigations of case assignments made by the Sergeant.

• Conduct follow-up investigations for all assigned cases, primarily gang graffiti crimes and other related cases needing follow-up.

• Other activities include serving search warrants, conducting surveillance and assisting CID Detectives as necessary.

Patrol – Traffic Safety

Police Officer 2 • Responds to traffic collisions and traffic related calls for service.

• Receives complaints from citizens and attempts resolution through enforcement, warnings, education; provides visibility/enforcement around schools to encourage traffic safety, DIRECTED RADAR.

• Frequently responds to other calls for service to assist Patrol Officers.

• Writes reports of traffic collisions and other incidents.

• Works 0600-1400; 1000-1800 Monday-Friday.



Division / Function



Patrol Traffic Accident Investigator

2 • A civilian position within the Department.• Responds to traffic collisions, traffic hazards, signal

problems and other low risk traffic related calls for service.

• Handles handicap parking complaints and reported abandoned and attempts resolution through enforcement, warnings, education.

• Conducts funeral escorts as assigned (about 10 per month).

• Writes reports of traffic collisions and other incidents.

• Works 0700-1500, 1000-1800 Monday-Friday.

Patrol - Crime Suppression Unit

SergeantOfficer

16

• A primarily pro-active enforcement team.• Conducts probation/parole searches; narcotics

enforcement; street surveillance work to address crime series when they occur.

• Conduct follow-up criminal investigations on gang related crime.

• Maintains and updates gang and graffiti database (significant workload for the one Officer who has primary responsibility).

• One Officer is assigned to the federal drug task force, the High Intensity Drug Traffic Area task force (HIDTA).

• Work Tuesday – Friday 1300-2300.

CID Lieutenant 1 • Supervise Sergeants, 3 Detectives assigned to the JTTF (FBI Terrorism Task Force – 1 Detective) and the Homeland Security Investigations Task Force (2 Detectives); and office staff (3 positions).

• Review domestic violence crime reports against undocumented persons and other crime reports as necessary.

• Oversee Sergeants to ensure follow-up investigations are conducted, including homicide, robbery, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, burglary, major theft and fraud.

• Coordinate case management, resource needs and coordination of effort.




Division / Function



CID SergeantSecretary

32

• Assigned to the Persons Crimes Unit, Property Crimes Unit or Narcotics/Nuisance Abatement Unit and supervises the Detectives assigned to that unit.

• Review crime reports and assign cases to investigators for follow-up.

• Oversee and monitor all follow-up investigations, including homicide, robbery, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, burglary, major theft and fraud.

• Coordinate case management, resource needs and coordination of effort.

• Tracks investigations assigned to detectives, reviews their written reports; tracks their caseloads and other assignments.

• Detectives are subject to call-out on a rotating basis.

• Secretaries provide clerical support and transcription to investigations work group.


CID Detectives (20):Persons CrimesInternet Crimes (ICAC)

Property Crimes

Narco/Nuisance Unit:Drug UnitSex Offenders

Task Forces:Homeland Security Invest.

Regional Drug

DEA

JTTF

41

5

31

2

2

1

1

• Assigned to the Persons Crimes Unit, Property Crimes Unit, Narcotics/Nuisance Abatement Unit or to a Task Force (off site).

• Responsible for follow-up investigations of case assignments made by the Sergeant.

• Task Force assigned Detectives have a direct supervisor at the Task Force for day-to-day work and also in CID for overall supervision.

• Conduct follow-up investigations for all assigned cases, both person crimes and property crimes, including: homicides, robbery, burglary, rape, sexual assaults, registering/follow-up on 290 P.C. sex registrants and related violations; missing persons, significant frauds, narcotic crimes, graffiti crimes and other cases needing follow-up.

• One Detective assigned to Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) to apprehend sexual predators.

• One Detective assigned primarily to monitor and follow-up on the approximately 80 sex registrants in Springdale.

• Other activities include serving search warrants, conducting surveillance.

• Coordinate with Patrol Officers as necessary to complete crime reports and investigations.

• Detectives are subject to call-out on a rotating basis.

• Work 0800-1700 hours Monday-Friday.

Total Positions 173



In total, the Springdale Police Department has 173 budgeted “Full Time

Equivalent” (FTE) positions – this includes 125 regular sworn positions and 48 civilian

personnel.



APPENDIX B: SUMMARY OF THE EMPLOYEE SURVEY

As part of Springdale’s Public Safety Study of the Police and Fire Departments

the project team developed and distributed a survey to the Police Department

employees in April 2012. The following summary provides information regarding this

survey instrument.

1. AN ANONYMOUS SURVEY WAS CIRCULATED TO ALL POLICE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES.

An anonymous survey was circulated to all Springdale Police Department

employees to provide them with an opportunity to provide input regarding staffing,

operations, and deployment practices of the department. Employees were asked to

respond to a series of questions concerning service to the community, management /

administration, organization, staffing, operations, quality of programs, effectiveness of

programs, equipment, and facilities.

Respondents provided the degree to which they either disagreed or agreed with

the statement, given the following options: “No Response”, “Strongly Agree”, “Agree”,

“Neutral”, “Strongly Disagree”, and “Disagree”. For discussion purposes in this

document, the project team groups the “Strongly Agree” and “Agree” responses into one

grouping when reporting general employee responses; the same is true for the “Strongly

Disagree” and “Disagree” and the “No Response” and “Neutral” responses. Additionally,

employees were asked to rate statements (using a scale of 1 to 10), ranging from Poor

to Excellent, and to leave a question blank for No Opinion regarding programs / services

and equipment / facilities of the Police Department.



Overall 168 surveys were distributed, of which 92 responses were received,

resulting in an overall response rate of 55%.

The table below shows the overall breakdown of responses by current

department assignment and sworn status.

The sections below summarize the results of this survey.

2. THE MAJORITY OF RESPONDENTS AGREED THAT THE POLICE DEPARTMENT PROVIDES HIGH LEVEL OF SERVICE BUT HAD MIXED REACTIONS REGARDING THE DEPARTMENT’S PRIORITY IN THE COMMUNITY AND THE LEVEL OF RESOURCES. Respondents were provided with statements regarding the level of service

provided by the department and the level of resources / importance of the Department

within the city. The survey questions in this category and their response are

summarized in the table below:

Statement Agree Disagree Neutral

1. The Police Department provides a high level of service to the community.

83% 6% 11%

2. Compared to other police departments in the area, Springdale provides high level of service.

71% 10% 19%

3. City residents view our Department as a high priority. 42% 35% 23%

4. Compared to other police departments in the area, Springdale has a high amount of resources for police services.

27% 44% 29%

The following points summarize this statistical information:

A majority of the respondents, 83%, agreed with question #1 “The Police Department provides a high level of service to the community.” Only 6% disagreed, and 11% remained neutral.


Department Assignment:Field Services 28Administrative Services 17Other 7No Response 40

Sworn Status:Sworn 62Civilian 27No Response 3


A majority of the respondents, 71%, agreed with question #2, “Compared to other police departments in the area, Springdale provides high level of service.” About 10% disagreed, and 19% remained neutral on the subject.

Respondents had a mixed response to question #3, “City residents view our Department as a high priority,” about 42% agreed, 35% disagreed, and 23% were neutral.

About 44% of the respondents disagreed, 27% agreed and 29% gave neutral answers to question #4, how they thought the level of police resources in Springdale was higher compared to other police departments in the area.

In summary, the majority of respondents agreed that Springdale’s Police

Department provided a high level of service compared to other departments in the area.

However, respondents had fairly mixed reactions regarding the residents of the city

viewing the department as a high priority, and almost a majority of the respondents

disagreed that Springdale had a high amount of resources compared to other

departments in the area.

3. WHILE THE MAJORITY OF RESPONDENTS AGREED THAT WORK PERFORMANCE EXPECTATIONS ARE CLEAR, THEY DID NOT AGREE ABOUT COMMUNICATION TO STAFF OR ACCOUNTABILITY OF STAFF.

Respondents were asked several questions regarding department management,

performance expectations and administrative planning of the Department. The

questions in this category and their responses are summarized in the table, below:


5. Our Department has a clear vision / direction for the future. 27% 49% 24%

6. I am kept informed of Departmental information that affects me. 37% 57% 6%

7. I am able to provide input to my supervisor and management. 50% 33% 17%

8. My work performance expectations are made clear. 58% 17% 25%

9. When problems and issues arise, they are resolved in a timely manner.

25% 52% 23%

10. Staff are held accountable for their actions. 29% 51% 20%

11. Our Department seems to be innovative and progressive. 27% 52% 21%




12. Our Department does a good job planning and scheduling our work assignments.

46% 29% 25%

13. Our policies and procedures are up to date and consistently followed.

27% 41% 32%

The following points summarize the above information:

Approximately 49% of the respondents disagreed with question #5, “Our Department has a clear vision / direction for the future.” About 27% agreed and 24% were neutral.

A majority of respondents, 57%, disagreed with question #6, “I am kept informed of Departmental information that affects me.” While 37% agreed and only 6% remained neutral.

Approximately 50% of respondents agreed with question #7, “I am able to provide input to my supervisor and management.” About 33% disagreed, and 17% were neutral on the issue.

A majority of respondents, 58%, agreed with question #8, “My work performance expectations are made clear.” While 17% disagreed and 25% remained neutral.

A slight majority of respondents, 52%, disagreed with question #9, “When problems and issues arise, they are resolved in a timely manner.” 25% agreed and 23% remained neutral regarding the statement.

A slight majority of respondents, 51%, disagreed with question #10, “Staff are held accountable for their actions.” About 29% agreed and 20% were neutral.

A slight majority of respondents, 52%, disagreed with question #11, “Our Department seems to be innovative and progressive.” 27% of the respondents agreed, and 21% chose to remain neutral.

Approximately 46% of respondents agreed with question #12, “Our Department does a good job planning and scheduling our work assignments.” While 29% disagreed and 25% remained neutral.

Respondents had a mixed reaction to question #13, “Our policies and procedures are up to date and consistently followed.” 27% agreed, 41% disagreed, and 32% remained neutral regarding the statement.

In summary, it can be seen that the majority of respondents agree that work

performance expectations are clear, but disagree with most of the other statements



related to the department’s communication style with its employees. Respondents also

disagree with the Department’s ability to hold staff accountable, or resolve issues in a

timely manner, or that the Department seems innovative or progressive.

4. RESPONDENTS GENERALLY AGREE THAT THEY WORK WELL WITH EACH OTHER AND CAN KEEP UP WITH THEIR WORKLOAD, BUT DO NOT BELIEVE THAT STAFFING LEVELS ARE ADEQUATE TO MEET CURRENT CITY NEEDS.

Respondents were asked to respond to several statements discussing the

staffing, resources, workload and operations of the Department. The survey questions

in this category and their responses are summarized in the tables below:


14. Staff resources are adequate to meet the current law enforcement needs of the city.

26% 57% 17%

15. We have the staff we need to perform safely and effectively during incidents.

29% 52% 19%

16. Dispatch information provided to us on incidents is accurate and timely.

45% 22% 33%

17. Our personnel work well with each other on calls for service to which they respond.

86% 3% 11%

18. We receive the practical training we need to maintain needed skills.

54% 28% 18%

19. Describe typical day-to-day workload: % of Responses

About the right balance between time available and the amount of work. 13%

I am always overloaded. I can never catch up. 14%

I could handle more work without being overloaded. 8%

Sometimes my workload is heavy, but most of the time I can keep up. 65%

The following points summarize the information from the tables above:

A majority of respondents, 57%, disagreed with question #14, “Staff resources are adequate to meet the current law enforcement needs of the city.” About 26% agreed and 17% remained neutral regarding the statement.



A slight majority of respondents, 52%, disagreed with question #15, “We have the staff we need to perform safely and effectively during incidents.” About 29% agreed and 19% remained neutral.

Respondents had a mixed reaction to question #16, “Dispatch information provided to us on incidents is accurate and timely” about 45% agreed, 22% disagreed, and 33% were neutral.

A large majority of respondents, 86%, agreed with question #17, “Our personnel work well with each other on calls for service to which they respond.” Only 3% disagreed, and 11% were neutral.

A slight majority of respondents, 54%, agreed with question #18 “We receive the practical training we need to maintain needed skills.” 28% disagreed, and 18% were neutral.

A majority of respondents, 65%, chose “Sometimes my workload is heavy, but most of the time I can keep up” to describe their typical day-to-day workload (#19), while only 8% chose “I could handle more work without being overloaded.” About the same percentage of respondents chose “About the right balance between time available and the amount of work.” and “I am always overloaded. I can never catch up.” 13% and 14%, respectively.

In summary, a majority of the overall responses disagreed with the staffing level

and resources to meet the needs of the city, but agreed that the employees work well

together and receive the practical training necessary to succeed. Majority of

respondents also stated that while the workload can be heavy, it is generally

manageable.

5. MAJORITY OF RESPONDENTS RANKED PROGRAMS AND SERVICES AS EITHER GOOD OR EXCELLENT.

Respondents were asked to respond to a series of statements concerning the

quality and effectiveness of the programs and services of the department. The survey

questions in this category and their responses are summarized in the table on the next

page.



Programs / Services Poor Fair Good Excellent No Opinion

20a. Response times to calls for service. 1% 15% 53% 22% 9%

20b. Availability of backup for officer safety. 3% 23% 37% 27% 10%

20c. Department capabilities for selective enforcement of targeted problems. 23% 37% 23% 9% 8%

20d. Amount of proactive time in the field. 9% 52% 20% 4% 15%

20e. The way officers deal with citizens. 1% 18% 46% 26% 9%

20f. Follow-up investigations. 9% 28% 36% 15% 12%

20g. Coordination between investigators and patrol. 35% 25% 24% 4% 12%

20h. Level of traffic enforcement. 9% 35% 37% 7% 12%

20i. Quality of dispatch services. 17% 37% 33% 5% 8%

20j. Availability and content of training. 25% 34% 24% 11% 6%

20k. Crime analysis. 25% 38% 18% 5% 14%

20l. Crime prevention programming. 29% 32% 21% 4% 14%

The following points summarize the statistical information provided in the table

above:

A slight majority of the respondents, 53%, rated #20a, “Response times to calls for service” as good, while only 1% rated it as poor, 15% as fair, 22% as excellent, and 9% had no opinion.

Respondents had a mixed response to #20b, “Availability of backup for officer safety.” Only 3% rated it as poor, 23% as fair, 37% as good, 27% as excellent, and 10% of the respondents were neutral.

Only 9% of the respondents rated #20c, “Department capabilities for selective enforcement of targeted problems” as excellent. About 23% of the respondents chose poor, 37% fair, 23% good, and 8% remained neutral.

A slight majority of respondents, 52%, rated #20d, “Amount of proactive time in the field” as fair, only 9% rated it as poor, 20% as fair, only 4% as excellent, and 15% had no opinion.

Only 1% of the respondents felt that #20e, “The way officers deal with citizens” was poor. About 18% felt it was fair, 46% good, 26% excellent, and only 9% had no opinion.

Approximately 36% of respondent’s ranked #20f, “Follow-up investigations” as good, 9% as poor, 28% as fair, 15% as excellent, and 12% were neutral.



35% of respondents ranked #20g, “Coordination between investigators and patrol” as poor, 25% as fair, 24% as good, only 4% as excellent, and 12% had no opinion.

Respondents had varied responses to question #20h, “Level of traffic enforcement.” Only 9% marked it as poor, 35% as fair, 37% as good, only 7% as excellent, and 12% as neutral.

Only 5% of respondents qualified question #20i, “Quality of dispatch services” as excellent, 17% qualified it a poor, 37% as fair, 33% as good, and only 8% remained neutral.

Approximately 25% of respondents ranked #20j, “Availability and content of training” as poor, while 34% of respondents ranked it as fair, 24% as good, 11% as excellent, and 6% had no opinion.

About a quarter of the respondents (25%) stated the quality of #20k, “Crime analysis” to be poor, 38% stated it to be fair, 18% as good, only 5% as excellent, and 14% remained neutral on its quality.

29% of the respondents chose to characterize #20l, “Crime prevention programming” as poor, 32% as fair, 21% as good, only 4% as excellent, and 14% had no opinion regarding the program.

In summary, the majority of respondents seemed to rank most of the services

and programs as either good or excellent. However, some of the programs seemed to

fall more heavily into the poor and fair categories such as the department’s capabilities

for selected target enforcements, coordination between investigators and patrol, the

availability and content of training, and crime analysis.

6. OTHER THAN POLICE FACILITY AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY MAJORITY OF RESPONDENTS RANKED EQUIPMENT AND FACILITIES AS EITHER GOOD OR EXCELLENT.

Respondents were asked to respond to a series of statement to rate the quality

of equipment and facilities available in the department. The table on the following page

summarizes the survey questions in this category and their responses:



Item Poor Fair Good Excellent No Opinion

21a. Vehicles 2% 29% 45% 15% 9%

21b. Radios 15% 23% 41% 15% 6%

21c. Officer personal equipment 11% 33% 35% 12% 9%

21d. Information Technology 26% 43% 18% 8% 4%

21e. Police Facility 36% 34% 24% 3% 3%

The following points summarize the statistical information provided in the table

above and on the previous page:

Only 2% of the respondents rated Vehicles (#21a) as poor, 29% as fair, 45% as good, 15% as excellent, and 9% remained neutral.

Approximately 41% of respondent rated the Radios (#21b) to be good, 15% as excellent, 15% as poor, 23% as fair, and only 6% had no opinion.

33% of respondents rated Officer personal equipment (#21c) as fair, 35% as good, 12% as excellent, 9% had no opinion, and 11% as poor.

Only 8% of respondents qualified Information Technology (#21d) as excellent, 4% had no opinion, 26% as poor, 43% as fair, and 18% as good.

Approximately 36% of respondents stated Police Facility (#21e) to be poor, 34% fair, 24% good, only 3% excellent and only 3% had no opinion.

In summary, the majority of respondents rated the vehicles, radios, and officer

personal equipment as either good or excellent. However, in regards to Information

Technology and the Police facility, the majority of respondents chose either poor or fair.

7. NARRATIVE SURVEY RESPONSES.

In addition to the survey’s forced choice questions, respondents were asked to

provide narrative responses to two open-ended questions (#8 to #9). The responses to

the questions were grouped by common themes and summarized by the project team.



(1) Please indicate what you believe are the most important strengths of the Springdale Police Department:

Those who chose to answer the open-ended questions stated that the greatest

strength lay in the teamwork between the officers, and the high level of dedication of

these officers to their job. Some of the additional common themes are summarized

below:

Greatest strengths of the department:

- Strong sense of teamwork- Dedication of Officers / commitment to serving the public- High quality equipment- Strong training- Fast response times- Strong Crime Suppression Unit

In summary, the majority of respondents stated that the strong sense of

teamwork and dedication to the City are the two greatest strengths of the department.

The department is highly invested in serving the public and for that reason there is

emphasis on training and a faster response time.

(2) Please indicate what you believe are the most important improvement opportunities facing the Springdale Police Department:

The general consensus of respondents for this question had to do mostly with

increasing the low staff morale and the low salaries. The comments are summarized

below.

Most important opportunities for improvement:

- Increasing the low staff morale - Increasing salary- Increasing staffing - Communication between management and staff- Greater consistency in policies and procedures- Equal accountability for managers and staff personnel- Updating dispatch equipment



In summary, the respondents stated the primary concern to be low staff morale,

which stemmed from low salary, lack of communication between management and

officers, and being overworked due to limited staffing.


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