SMPD is a rather large chunk of the general fund. The General Fund this year is $126 million:
and SMPD is the biggest chunk of that, at 22%.
…
Obviously there’s huge disagreement within the community on this point. Maybe you think all cops are trigger-happy jerks with daddy issues, or maybe you think cops are upright citizens with a zest for being helpful. Most likely, you’re somewhere in between.
At any rate, as a community, we have to come together and make decisions.
Here’s a question: does SMPD need more staff?
(First off, yes: all of our city departments need more staffing.) But anyway, in order to answer this in an unbiased manner, we hired some consultants.
Here’s what they say:
and
You can read the whole report here (scroll down past the slides). It’s very detailed.
Here’s just a highlight of the slides:
Afternoons and late night is when they get the most calls.
The university has its own separate police force with its own rules. But they sort of overlap and cooperate around the edges:
So how long does it take for police to show up?
They do not show up to minor car crashes anymore, because of those budget cuts we’ve been talking about.
The consultants made a big deal out of “proactivity”.
It’s basically the things that get done in between crises. If you’re always swinging wildly from crisis to crisis, you can never harass brown people for broken tail lights assist the grandmothers when they have a flat tire.
Next up is Dispatch:
That seems very sympathetic.
and admin:
Ok.
And investigations:
Sure.
…
Loose, disorganized thoughts:
- It’s good to have this information
- This whole report is inherently pro-cop, because it is pro-status quo. This is not a conversation about how we can re-imagine safety in San Marcos. However, a majority of San Marcos does support SMPD.
- All departments are being squeezed right now. If we conducted staffing studies on all departments, we’d get big needs across the board.
That’s all I got!
The San Marxist 