Letter from Ann Arbor police officers union raises concerns about proposed layoffs

"Over the course of the past 10 years, the AAPD has been forced to move from proactive policing to reactive policing," reads the letter signed by AAPOA President John Elkins and Vice President Jamie Adkins (download the letter here).

The City Council meets at 7 p.m. today to consider a two-year budget that includes eliminating 25 positions in the police department over the next two years, with the first round of cuts coming July 1.

Tonight's meeting is expected to be adjourned with a final decision on the budget pushed back to a later date. Financial issues surrounding the Downtown Development Authority still need to be resolved before the council can approve the budget.

Mayor John Hieftje said he wasn't surprised by the union's letter but said he disagreed with the assertion that the city has gone too far with cuts to police services.

"I think our police department is still very capable of doing proactive work and they demonstrate that all the time, and that's reflected in the crime statistics," he said. "Fortunately in Ann Arbor, we've seen crime go down steadily over the last 10 years, and that trend is continuing."

A total of 7,911 crimes were reported in Ann Arbor last year, a figure that's down nearly 19 percent from 2002 levels. Crime ticked up 2.6 percent last year, but city officials attribute that to a crackdown on underage drinking and open intoxicants.

FBI Uniform Crime Reports show Ann Arbor remains the second safest of Michigan's six largest cities, trailing only Sterling Heights. Lansing has 4.4 times more violent crime per capita, Grand Rapids has 3.5 times, Detroit has 7.7 times and Warren has 2.5 times.

"While it has been stated that there has been a reduction in crime statistics, at least some of that reduction is due to the fact that there are fewer officers available for proactive enforcement," the union's letter from today reads. "A reduction in reported crime does not necessarily mean a reduction in actual crime occurrences."

The union argues the police department has experienced a 39 percent reduction in full-time employees since 2001, while other city departments have been hit with lesser cuts. The letter mentions by name several police employees who face losing their jobs and talks about their dedication to the department and the need to preserve those jobs.

"In a national comparison of cities with major universities and similar populations, Ann Arbor ranks second to last for the number of city police officers," reads the letter, which includes a chart comparing Ann Arbor to other college towns. "All of the universities included in this comparison maintain their own police agencies, the same as the University of Michigan."

Over the next two years, city officials propose eliminating 48 full-time positions in city government, reducing the number of employees from 736 to 688.

On the chopping block starting July 1 are 13 positions in the police department and seven firefighter positions. The police department has 124 sworn officers, including Police Chief Barnett Jones, who as of last month also serves as the city's fire chief.

The 13 positions in the police department that would be eliminated effective July 1 include two vacant dispatch positions, one vacant telecommunicator position, one vacant police professional assistant position and one vacant officer position. Five officers, two dispatchers and one police service specialist would be laid off.

"I hate to see anyone at the city laid off," Hieftje said. "But the city has been very good to the police department over the years in that there's never been a layoff of a police officer, and we've been prioritizing safety services for a very long time."

Hieftje said the police union has the ability to stop four of the five officer layoffs by agreeing to bring its health care benefits in line with the packages offered to the city's nonunion employees, but the union has been unwilling to make that concession.

The union argues the police department's costs have been inflated since 2004 when it began incurring charges from the city's fleet and information technology departments.

The union claims the police department is now being billed $18,000 a year in fleet service charges for each police vehicle. In addition, the union claims the police budget is billed more than $5,500 per year in IT charges for each computer assigned to the department.

Tom Crawford, the city's chief financial officer and interim city administrator, said those are internal service charges that apply to every city department and they allow IT and fleet to recoup actual costs incurred for services. As for the IT charges, Crawford said those not only cover computer costs, but also access to the city's network and all of its software.

As for the vehicle charges, he said, that covers setting aside money every year for eventual replacement of the vehicle, work orders for repairs and maintenance, and several thousand dollars a year for fuel alone. He said there are some vehicles where the annual fleet charge ends up being more than $18,000, but the average appears to be about $11,000.

Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's e-mail newsletters.