More Help Wanted
I’ve just finished taking another critical look at the information concerning vacancies in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and it continues to raise more questions. For example, with IMPD averaging about 130 street patrol officer vacancies, it makes one wonder about the appropriations for those positions. Logic dictates the vacancies would not be listed if there was no money to fill them. And assuming an average salary and pension of $110,000 per officer, this translates into more than $6 million in the bank. And I have to ask if those vacancies are being used to underwrite some of the savings consolidation was supposed to bring to the city?
Secondly, because IMPD is short-staffed on patrol officers the officer-supervisor ratio is extraordinarily high. There are 354 sergeants and lieutenants, as opposed to 1109 patrol officers. That makes the officer-supervisor ratio 1:3. Best practices in IMPD training manuals are considered to be 1:6. So not only is IMPD short on patrol officers, but it is very top heavy with management.
Third, and perhaps just a disturbing, are the vacancies in the civilian support staff. According to the report there are nearly 60 civilian openings, with more than a third in the transcription and processing sections, which are necessary to move reports forward so cases can be solved.
I left a request late last week with IMPD to get an answer to these questions, but to date no one has gotten back with me. IMPD officials are more than welcome to respond and I will give them the airtime on my radio program or space on this blog to do it.
And for the record, I am not reporting this information to make the city or IMPD look bad or for the glorification of my already oversized, massive ego. I am reporting this information because this city has serious issues and we cannot fight crime effectively unless we have the infrastructure and manpower to do it effectively.
