A proposal to ask voters to repeal a mandate on new Aurora police hires based on increases in population died the same week police began strategizing this month for their upcoming contract negotiations with the city.
City Councilman Bob LeGare had pushed the council to seek voter approval to overturn what some say is an antiquated charter provision that requires the city to hire 1.6 sworn police officers for every 1,000 new residents.
LeGare said the mandate is costing the city too much money and will continue to do so. But at a recent retreat, the City Council rejected his idea — with the majority saying they wanted to honor what the voters had approved and an agreement with the police union. The law has been on the books since 1994.
Staffing rate lowered
Aurora is the only city or town in Colorado that has a staffing mandate for police, said Sam Mamet, executive director of the Colorado Municipal League. There are about 100 municipalities that are under home rule, which means a city or town has adopted a charter for its local self-governance.
“Aurora stands alone in that regard,” Mamet said.
The rate was lowered by the City Council from 2 per 1,000 residents to 1.6 per 1,000 residents a few years ago after negotiations with the Aurora Police Association.
Even Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates has spoken out against the staffing mandate.
“It’s dead in the water,” LeGare said. “If you go out 10, 15 years, we’re better off repealing it. As it is, it’s going to eat our lunch.”
After the agreement with the union in 2012, the staffing mandate will have cost the city about $1.9 million by 2015, increasing to $14.7 million by 2027 based on projected growth and a slight increase in the staffing ratio, according to the city.
It costs about $100,000 per officer a year, including salary and benefits. Eight new officers are estimated every two years starting in 2015, through 2021. Then the agreement calls for 10 new hires annually starting in 2022, through 2025, then 11 in 2026 and 11 in 2027.
Councilwoman Barb Cleland, who was on the council when the staffing mandate passed, said the council knew that a 0.25-cent sales tax that accompanies the mandate would cover costs for about seven years.
She said the police association in good faith agreed to lower the ratio from 2 per 1,000 to 1.6 because of the slumping economy.
“We made a commitment to the association, and I will not renege on a promise I made,” Cleland said. “We were hurting financially, and the association said we’ll help you for a few years, then go back to 2 per 1,000.”
Also, the city is eyeing a property tax increase of 2 mills on the November ballot that, if approved, would raise about $7 million annually, LeGare said. But that money is for all public safety, including the fire department and municipal court, and is not necessarily earmarked only for police or the staffing mandate.
Other cities’ formulas
Aurora has about 670 police officers in a city of about 340,000 residents, city officials said.
Even with the mandate, Aurora’s current officer ratio of 1.6 per 1,000 residents is less than in Lakewood, which has 1.77 officers for every 1,000 people, and Denver’s 2.3 per 1,000 residents.
Lakewood police spokesman Steve Davis said the city uses a hiring model from the International Association of Chiefs of Police that analyzes workloads and service expectations aligned to the city’s goals.
“We have never had a ratio or a goal on our numbers,” Davis said.
Matthew Murray, chief of staff for Denver police, said the city has 1,426 officers for a population of 620,000, which comes out to a police-resident ratio of 2.3 per 1,000 residents. But the city does not actively set out to meet a certain ratio, he said.
Instead, it uses a sophisticated formula, Murray said, to meet certain goals the city wants to achieve in certain areas, such as how many traffic citations are written.
“What we’ve tried to say to the City Council and mayor is, ‘Here’s your … la carte menu, what is it you’d like to do?’ ” he said.
Aside from the direct expense of hiring the mandated number of officers, there are other costly consequences as well, LeGare noted. For example, because Aurora is required to have a certain number of uniformed officers, they are now manning previous jobs that were filled by civilians, who did so at about half the cost.
With technology like license-plate readers and red-light cameras, there isn’t a need to have a mandate for more police officers, LeGare said.
“Catching bad guys when they drive in the city doesn’t take 13 cops and two years to bust them anymore,” he said of technology such as license-plate readers.
Carlos Illescas: 303-954-1175, cillescas@denverpost.com or twitter.com/cillescasdp
