No Relief for Understaffed Police Department

Due to further cuts in its already threadbare budget, the Falmouth Police Department will continue to provide only the most basic crime-fighting and emergency services to the town, according to Police Chief Anthony Riello.

At least through the 2012 fiscal year, Riello said in an interview Tuesday morning, “the service going forward right now is the same as we've got this year. In other words, we're down to skin and bones.”

Based on the 2012 town budget, the police department will have to reduce its operating costs by some $184,000 from 2011 levels. The current year's budget already represents significantly lower spending than normal, continuing a belt-tightening imperative that has been in place since 2009. But the 2012 budget represents the steepest decline in funding so far.

Riello identified the primary victim of the cuts succinctly: “People. There was nothing else left in the budget to cut. Everything else has been cut over the last three years. We have a diminished workforce. We're running short of personnel.”

That shortfall is due to a convergence of circumstances, including injuries, retirement, transfers, and military service. The budget comes into play in the restaffing process. Eight of the currently vacant positions will be eliminated rather than filled, meaning that even after the long hiring and training process is complete, there will be fewer officers on Falmouth's streets.

Officers have been reassigned from a variety of departments in order to augment uniform patrols, the core group of units which respond to 911 calls and take other direct and immediate action in response to crimes or crises. The reassignments have severely limited the functioning of the department.

“Here's the impact,” Riello said. “Here's what happens. We can't do the type of followup that we need to do on a lot of our investigations. The detective bureau's been decimated. The school resource officer's not in school anymore, he's been reassigned to patrol, so we don't have somebody on campus. This is huge, because there were a lot of investigations that were being done by the school resource officer, a lot of initiatives that the school resource officer was involved in, and these things are not being done anymore.”

Officers are increasingly called upon to work long shifts, stretching the department's limited resources as far as possible.

“Morale is a critical, critical issue,” Riello added. “Morale is not good here.”

Four officers have requested and received transfers since last summer, adding to the shortage of manpower. All four cited a drop in net pay due to the loss of benefits provided by the Quinn Bill, which the town discontinued due to financial concerns.

“That was the educational incentive program,” Riello explained. “Officers got paid for having associate's, bachelor's, and master's degrees. Obviously, the purpose of the program is to have educated officers. It gives you a better officer, a better-qualified officer. But it costs money. You have to pay for that.

“That was half funded by the state. The state bailed out, and the town was not required to pay, so they didn't. I had 33 officers that took, depending on the degree they had, a 12 ½, 10, or five percent pay cut. All at once. No one else in town took that kind of hit. No one.

“During exit interviews, each mentioned that. They also mentioned that they were looking for more opportunities, and, some of them, that we weren't progressive anymore. And that's directly related to funding.”

The drastic scale-back in the department's coverage has forced the limiting or outright cancellation of most of the training and prevention programs that earned the FPD that reputation for progressiveness. Casualties include the Neighborhood Liaison Program, a wide assortment of beats and patrols, and an even wider variety of specialized training programs which were previously in place to help officers deal with aspects of police work, from accident investigation to drug enforcement to domestic violence.

Beyond the loss of coverage that comes with the decrease in boots on the ground, Riello worries that the manpower shortage is having a chilling effect on all aspects of policing in Falmouth.

“What happens when you run a minimum number of cruisers and police officers for a town this size, a lot of the enforcement-type activities that we would do...the officer has to think twice, because it doesn't take much to tie up the entire shift. You don't want somebody tied up doing something, let's say stopping a car, when two or three other officers are tied up at a major disturbance or that type of thing, and he's the only cruiser available.

“So what happens is, a lot of things will slip by, whether it be traffic safety, or maybe just stopping and interrogating, doing a threshold inquiry on a suspicious activity. Some things may be overlooked, because they have to keep sight of the main, primary mission, which is to respond to 911 calls and calls for service.”

Riello said he plans to begin the hiring process during the summer, hoping to fill those positions not eliminated due to budget cuts, and thus take at least some of the pressure off of his overworked, understaffed force. He admitted that gaining new numbers, especially through transfers from other departments, will be difficult, due to the decline in the FPD's incentives and reputation.

“Let's put it this way: No one's asking to come here. The fact that we're losing all these people doesn't create a good feeling in the department. People, logically, say, 'Where am I going, what's my future?' And that's a legitimate question they have to ask. But I think we can turn this around.”

For the time being, Riello said his greatest source of optimism is the dedication and resourcefulness of the officers he has left.

“These people are still out there doing the job. They're police officers. They're professionals.

“It's going to take time to move forward, it's going to take time to hire those folks that we need. But I believe that we're on the right track.”