Below is a message from NAPO regarding the new collective bargaining bill. NAPO explained at the conference last week that the first collective bargaining bill, HR 413, was held up in the Senate.  However, NAPO is optimistic that since this similar bill is starting off in the Senate that this will pass.  Let’s cross our fingers.  We are urging MPA members to contact our Arizona Senators and Representatives, explaining how important it is for police officers to have collective bargaining.

Click here for Senator Contact Information

Click here for Representative Contact Information

*********************************************************

Dear Members,

On August 6, 2009, Senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) introduced the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, S. 1611.  The bill currently has 7 cosponsors: 4 Republicans (Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snow, Mel Martinez and Mike Johanns) and 3 Democrats (Senators Tom Harkin, Barbara Mikulski and Christopher Dodd). 

For your information, please find a below link of the bill itself (S.1611), NAPO’s endorsement letter to Senator Gregg, a list of current cosponsors of the House bill (H.R. 413) as well as a list of Senators who cosponsored S. 2123 last Congress. 

While your Senators and Congressmen are in their home states and districts during this month, please contact them and urge them to sign on in support of S. 1611 and H.R. 413.  NAPO is planning on making a big push to move S. 1611 as early as September and we need all the support we can get! 

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or need further information on either S. 1611 or H.R. 413.  I can be reached at the NAPO office at (703) 549-0775 or at amournighan@napo.org.

Thank you,

Andy

Andrea Mournighan

Director of Governmental Affairs

National Association of Police Organizations

317 S. Patrick Street

Alexandria, VA 22314

(703) 549-0775

(571) 309-2923 (cell)

(703) 684-0515 (fax)

Senate Bill 1611 Letter from NAPO

Senate Bill 1611 Verbiage

Sponsors From House

Sponsors from Senate

MPA attended the Operations Retreat last week and voiced membership concerns, reminded command staff of issues MPA was working on with Chief Gascon and future issues and solutions that Mesa police officers are faced with.

Education-based discipline:  MPA met with the founder of this idea for officers, Leroy Baca, Sheriff of Los Angeles County, in April of this year at Harvard University. MPA was given all materials related to implementation of this new policy on a CD. Sheriff Baca was also willing to talk to Chief Gascon about implementation in Mesa. MPA presented this idea to Gascon along with all the policies and procedures and asked that he talk to the Sheriff about it. Once he looked into it, he agreed to integrate it into Mesa’s discipline policy to the extent possible.  We are experiencing a delay due to accessibility of adequate training classes.  MPA has pushed for development of an IA discipline matrix to include no disciplinary probation (unless in extreme cases) and no unpaid suspension over three days.

Stimulus money: MPA reminded the command staff that Mesa was originally pushing for 100 officers instead of 25 and are working on a local and national level to address our staffing needs.  Originally this year the city was going to lose 52 officers through attrition, and we are essentially doing a balancing act with the 25 from stimulus money.  Additional sources of revenue need to be found in order to address the 400 officer shortage.

There are cities around the nation that are now questioning to accept stimulus money they were already approved for.  At the NAPO conference last week, MPA asked them to work with Obama, Biden and Holden to look into giving Mesa stimulus money that other agencies will not use.   Their direct lines to Washington might help resolve some of Mesa’s staffing issues.

Traffic Centralization: MPA is pushing still to make Traffic centralized in order to be more effective, increase DUI arrests and save more lives.  Over a year has gone by where options were presented by MPA with limited results, like leasing vehicles and receiving money from RICO funds and grants.  This is a top priority for MPA as our Mesa cops can be more effective on the streets. The MPA openly disagreed with decentralizing Traffic based on the fact that we just did not have the personnel to adequately staff all the districts. The MPA was the only organization to voice their opinion against decentralization of Traffic.

MPA representatives communicated to command staff that we are all working on the same goals – to make Mesa safe and get the staffing and equipment our officers need.  We can agree to disagree on many issues.  However, the lines of communication are with the command staff as MPA makes themselves available for issues that arise.  MPA hopes there is an increase of communication, not just from these formalized meetings, but expanding to commanders and their district MPA reps.    

While Mesa police union officials applauded word the department would receive $5.8 million in federal funds for 25 new officers, they say the money will only slow the “bleeding” of empty positions.When the economy tanked last year, Mesa was forced to slash its police budget 8.25 percent. That meant a 90-percent reduction in overtime and the freezing of open positions.

With new funding on the way, the department stands to reopen some positions.

“I was glad,” Sgt. Fabian Cota, president of the Mesa Police Association, said of the grant funding announced Tuesday. “We were a little disappointed to only get 25 though.”

Former Chief George Gascón had pressed city leaders to apply for 100 officers, but that was later trimmed to 25.

“In reality it’s just going to make up for the officers we are losing. It’s just going to slow the bleeding a bit,” Cota said.

The department had 857 sworn personnel in July 2008, but that number has dropped to 808, according to police figures. Without the federal funding, by 2010, the department would be left with about 780 officers to police nearly 500,000 people.

On Tuesday, White House officials announced that Arizona police departments would receive $12.6 million in economic-stimulus funds. Mesa received the most funding than any other city in the state.

The money will be administered by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Community Oriented Policing Services program (COPS) and will be used to hire 56 new officers statewide.

The money will finance the officers’ salary and benefits for three years. The city must equip officers with cars, weapons and other gear and cover their salaries once the grant runs out.

Mayor Scott Smith said the city is prepared for the added expense.

“Whatever we take on, we’re committed to funding it,” he said.

However, that commitment could prove costly if the economy doesn’t rebound quickly enough.

It costs up to $120,000 to train one new recruit, said Sgt. Brian Soller, president of the Mesa and Arizona chapters of the Fraternal Order of Police. In addition to their $72,000 salary which includes benefits, rookie officers receive about $14,000 in equipment including a vehicle, badge, gun, Taser and other items.

“We are excited about this,” Soller said of the new officers. “It’s not a cure-all by any means, but it will help us stem the loss of officers we have experienced.”

Because of the nature of the COPS grant, the officers will be oriented toward crime prevention and community policing.

“Those positions will put officers on the street and get them out into the community,” Soller said.

While more bodies on the street is a good start, Cota said overall there are too few officers for the city’s needs. There are currently 1.8 officers per 1,000 residents, whereas the city should have about 2.4 officers, national standards suggest.

Cota said the department needs more patrol, DUI and school resource officers, and more detectives assigned to its Computer Forensics Unit, which he says is “way understaffed.”

“We should have 10 to 15 detectives in there,” Cota said, noting that the unit once had seven detectives and now has two.

Computer forensics detectives search through thousands of electronic files on computers and data from cell phones, text messages and photographs. Much of that information helps in prosecuting sexual predators.

“That’s one things haven’t been able to do is go after online child predators in Mesa. That’s a serious problem,” Cota said.

While manpower will likely continue to be an ongoing problem into the future, Soller and Cota say they will continue to press city, state and federal officials for additional funding.

“We are going to continue to work and be in constant contact with the Obama Administration . . . to see if there is more we can do to get more manpower and technology our way,” Cota said.

Read the full article here:  “Police Union: 25 officers helps, but Mesa still understaffed”