Commission Discussion IMPD Staffing Shortage

A study commission is looking at how many more police officers are needed in Indianapolis and how to pay for them.

The group met for the first time Thursday night.

"I would say the start of the commission is already a success, and here is why.  We have complete agreement that we are hundreds of officers short on the police department," said Fraternal Order of Police First Vice President Rick Snyder.  "That's taken us two or three years to get to the point where everyone can come to a consensus that we need to hire more police officers.  That's huge.  Now the question is, how many is the right number that we need and how do we go about doing that?"

The commission discussed staffing issues for about three hours.

City County Councilor John Barth says the goal is to outline a roadmap for how to resolve the shortage.

"We thought as an exit from the budget process, something that would be useful for this council and subsequent councils, we have some clarity around a recommendation from this commission to the commission saying 'it's our recommendation that going forward the council work to ensure 'x' amount of officers for this year, 'x' amount of officers for that year, and these are your options for paying for it,'" he said.  "That way, we can do our best to remove any politics that may be associated with staffing of the IMPD."

The commission will meet five more times through March in part to figure out exactly how many more police are needed.

IMPD Chief Rick Hite thinks it’s about 200.

"That is, I think, a safe request," said Hite.  "We know for a fact that it costs $120,000 for an officer on average.  We are being honest and fair with the tax payers about what we need.  Not only for attrition, but also our ability to make sure the city is safe going into the future."

Fraternal Order of Police President Bill Owensby says 200 is a baseline, but the city likely needs more.

"The important thing for man power, when we reach a certain man power level we can do a much, much more proactive police work, much, much more community policing type of police work versus the position we are in right now which is reacting to crime, reacting to what the bad guys are doing," he said.  "Which means we respond after the act is committed."

The commission will meet again February 26.