Part 1 was published yesterday.Below are some indicators that the Chief of Police and the Town Council are unskilled regarding contemporary and effective town staffing and law enforcement practice:
• Operational rejection of the fact that most law enforcement officer capability growth occurs largely from officers handling approximately 80% of case responses alone (there is no need for 2-6 officers on the scene more than approximately 20% of the time).
• Very significant and unnecessary headcount leading to excess expense for payroll, employment taxes, facilities, equipment, vehicles, training, and overhead.
• A command staff that is 50% larger than necessary for Oro Valley’s demographics and low incidence of felony and other serious crimes as revealed in the Uniform Crime Report (UCR). Excess employees always correlate with excess command staff.
• Living a lie regarding supposed Community Policing in Oro Valley. Community Policing is always evidenced by things like foot beats, bicycle beats, always responding to and learning from citizens, and rejection of petty traffic enforcement activities that skilled officers have little interest in. Dispatching four officers or four officers simply showing up anywhere (except for felonies in progress and active shooter calls) is evidence of rejection of community policing by any agency including the OVPD.
• Almost no dash-cams and body-cams (body-cams are worn only by Oro Valley motorcycle officers). This appears to indicate that the OVPD is not concerned about either serious crime or officer safety. Yes, body-cams are slightly expensive, but the savings from laying off three officers is enough to buy body-cams for all remaining officers.
• No drug unit and a false belief within the OVPD that opioids are of no issue whatsoever in Oro Valley.
• Excess delineation and false specialization of duties, divisions, operational silo's, and responsibilities. Silo's detract strongly from team and agency efficiency.
(Silo's refer to the multitude of separate operating units such as detectives, motorcycle division, school division, special operations, volunteers, etc. each with their own delineated command structure. This approach is not taken within municipalities of less than about 75,000 population unless it is within a high or very high felony rate location.)
• A substantially under-capable special operations unit (CAT Squad) that works only 4 days per week…and not individually. Criminals do not take three days off per week and most skilled investigators accept that working alone about 80% of the time leads to more arrests and a much greater conviction rate. It is easier for a felon to know when he/she is being surveilled by police novices when four officers are engaged in it.
• A pointless (and bordering on useless) training function. Two examples: No officer has ever been trained to stay on their beat or to handle over 80% of their citizen contacts alone.
The above failings have come at an excess cost of between $2.8 million and $4.6 million per year within the police department alone.
A’s hire A’s and B’s hire C’s
We always share with our clients that, “A’s hire A’s and B’s hire C’s.” This explains all the C’s at the OVPD. It has remained overstaffed in a failed attempt to make up for all the C’s who were hired by all the B’s.
Take-home vehicles and IRS violations
The OVPD at last report had 126 vehicles. It should also be noted that the Town of Oro Valley has provided automobiles and motorcycles for personal and business use (take-home vehicles) to nearly 65 town employees, about 34 of which are taken home by OVPD officers. You should also know that the Town has a massive IRS regulation problem due to the fact that personal and commuting usage is not being logged and taxed (including daily commuting miles to as far away as Sahuarita and Casa Grande.) Nearly all commuting and personal vehicle mileage is taxable in Arizona and in the U.S.
Based upon common and contemporary acceptable practice, a town with Oro Valley’s population size (43,000) requires only 4 take-home vehicles within the police department. These should be assigned to the Chief of Police, the Deputy Chief, the Detective Commander, and the Senior Evidence Technician, all of whom are subject to fairly frequent call-out.
An additional 4-7 Town Hall Staff cars should be assigned to senior executives and those subject to off-duty calls on at least 8 occasions per year. This would include the Mayor, the Public Works Director, and perhaps one or two others, with the remainder of that small fleet being utilized on a pool basis (and never being garaged at homes).
All individuals with take-home cars must be subject to call-out and must be called out with significant regularity. ALL employees with take-home cars must be salaried employees with very few job necessity exceptions such as the Senior Evidence Technician.
In summary, there is no actual data or evidence to suggest that Oro Valley is being led intelligently, ethically, or in compliance with regulations. It is not my intention to damage or disparage any persons…only to stop the financial idiocy of a town being habitually misled and, thus far, being unwilling to correct itself.
Part 3 will be published tomorrow.
