Wilmette Police Chief Brian King told a group of village officials last week that he is comfortable with department staff levels, even if a report shows the village with fewer sworn officers per 1,000 residents than other North Shore communities.
“If I felt I needed more staff, I’d tell you,” he told members of the village board’s public safety committee on May 24.
He said Wilmette police serve the village well, at a cost of just over $1 per day per resident.
“For less than you may spend on a cup of coffee, we provide you with a minimum of five patrol cars on the street, 24/7; we’ll put an officer on the front steps of your home in less than three minutes in an actual emergency, and we’ll provide you with a fully-staffed, 24-hour communication center and full service detective bureau,” King said.
Village staff will further research how the village spends its public safety dollars and bring that information back to the committee in June, Assistant Village Manager Michael Braiman said last week. The research, including scenarios on how staff cuts might affect service, could help village trustees explain to residents why Wilmette funds the department as it does, Braiman said, and explain the value of its services.
According to King’s 12-page report, which compared Wilmette with 15 other North Shore communities, Wilmette, with a population of 27,087, has the lowest number of sworn officers per 1,000 people, at 44 or 1.6 per 1,000. That compares with the average of 2 per thousand, the report states.
More Top Picks Best Night Lights For Seniors
The department has roughly 48 employees, with civilian staff included, according to the 2016 Wilmette budget.
However, a better method of measuring service levels is to compare how many officers the village has per so-called “Part One” crimes, King said. Part One crimes include murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, theft, stolen autos and arson; the FBI collects data on those crimes for statistical purposes, making them a good benchmark, he said.
In 2014, Wilmette had eight Part One crimes per officer. That is lower than other communities with higher populations, or whose demographics and geography, like having shopping centers or access to highways, draw crime, King said.
For Trustee Ted McKenna, who chairs the committee, the information the committee gets in June may be a crucial public education tool as trustees explore how to fund both public safety – its police and fire departments – and infrastructure needs like sewer, road and alley repairs.
“I’m not suggesting cutting bodies,” he said at the meeting. “But there are other strategies. I’m certainly not a fan of raising taxes, but …what are the strategies we have?”
On May 26, McKenna said he didn’t know what the best levels of staffing would be.
However, he said, “I want to be able to make a case to the residents; either why we need the services we have, why we don’t pave potholes, or why we increase taxes.”
McKenna told Braiman and committee members Trustee Julie Wolf and Trustee Senta Plunkett that while he’s been on the board, he’s watched funding for fire and police departments stay relatively untouched, even as the board searches for money to fund infrastructure repair.
“So what do we do? Live with it? Move funding from another area? Or … do we need to have a compelling argument to go to the public and say we need to raise taxes?” McKenna said.
“I don’t know if people in the village would equate public works with public safety,” Plunkett responded. “I think they would value public safety above fixing pot holes, even if they call about the potholes.”
Braiman said he believed the research staff would bring back to the committee’s June meeting “will arm you for answering those questions.”
Twitter: @pioneer_kathy