On June 21, Mayor Tim Keller and APD Chief Harold Medina held a news conference to announce a new law enforcement initiative they dubbed “Targeted Enforcement Action Monitoring” (TEAM). The new program is tailored specifically for the Central Downtown Business area. Extra police officers will be assigned to focus on traffic enforcement, DWIs, modified car exhaust citations, illegal firearms and to patrol parking lots where after parties and violence break out after the numerous bars close. The city is planning to open a new substation on Central between Third and Fourth in the Rosenwald Building.
What is astonishing is that Mayor Keller and Chief Medina are asking Downtown businesses to contribute to a fund to pay for the TEAM police protection. They have actually said to downtown businesses that if they are concerned about crime and public safety issues in downtown and they want police protection, they need to pay extra for it.
Due to the officer shortage in Albuquerque, officers will participate on a volunteer basis through the chief’s overtime program. Chief’s overtime consists of private businesses, organizations or event organizers paying for off duty officers to provide security. According to Medina, the TEAM program will be of no cost to the taxpayer. Instead, it will be funded by the city, downtown business owners, and private donations.
Chief Medina when asked why private businesses should pay for police presence said this:
“This is a way for people to fund Downtown, specifically, and not us devoting all our resources and money to just one specific part of town. … Because the moment I devote our resources and funding to Downtown, I guarantee there’s going to be another part of town asking ‘where’s my cut?’”
The TEAM program requiring private funding is as about as messed up as any Mayor can get with a police department. The biggest problem with Chief’s Overtime is that it is essentially a program where city personnel resources, sworn police, are being used to make a profit for the city. Any city program that uses public funded resources to make a profit is dangerous and is a ripe for corruption and severe public criticism and scrutiny.
Over the last 4 years of city budgets under Keller, enough money was budgeted to pay for 1,100 officers each year. During the April 28 budget hearing APD Chief Harold Medina acknowledged for the very first time that APD employing 1,100 sworn police is likely unrealistic. Medina told the city council that APD estimates that it will finish the fiscal year 2023 that ends on June 30, 2023 with just 982 officers.
Budgeted sworn officer positions carry a price tag of upwards $105,000 apiece when you include base salaries and add benefits such as the city’s portion of retirement pay. That means that by next year’s end there are only 982 officers as Medina told the city council, and APD is budgeted for 1,100 sworn positions, 118 salaries will go unspent. That translates into $12,390,000 in unspent salaries calculated as follows: 118 vacant positions at $105,000 a piece equals $12,390,000 salaries will accrue as unspent.
Keller and Medina proclaimed they are working in a resource-constrained environment. The only constraint that really exists is in the inability of Mayor Tim Keller and Chief Harold Medina to manage APD resources. The fact that APD has a shortage of police officers is Keller’s and Medina’s fault, not the taxpayer’s fault, and is a result of their failure, some would say, incompetence, to staff APD at the levels that have been fully funded.
APD is awash with unused funding that is dedicated to funding sworn police positions never filled. Police protection is the most important city essential service that the city provides its citizens and which they pay for with taxes. Yet Keller and Medina seek private funding, telling Downtown business owners they need to take “control of their own future” by paying for police protection.
Mayor Keller and Chief Medina telling downtown business that if they want police protection, they must pay extra for it is akin to a godfather like “shake down.” In making the request for donations to fund police, both essentially concede that they are failures in managing the personnel resources of the largest budgeted department in the city despite a 14.7% increase in APD’s annual budget which is $255.4 million.
Instead of kissing Keller’s ring and paying more for police protection, Downtown business owners should demand Keller and Medina deliver on the police protection they are already paying for.
Pete Dinelli is a native of Albuquerque. He is a licensed New Mexico attorney with 27 years of municipal and state government service including as an assistant attorney general, assistant district attorney prosecuting violent crimes, city of Albuquerque deputy city attorney and chief public safety officer, Albuquerque city councilor, and several years in private practice. Dinelli publishes a blog covering politics in New Mexico: www.PeteDinelli.com.