HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022.0906.TCWS.MinutesTOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS
MINUTES OF THE WORK SESSION
OF THE FOUNTAIN HILLS TOWN COUNCIL
SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
1. CALL TO ORDER
Mayor Dickey called the Work Session of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on
September 6, 2022, to order at 8:08 p.m.
2. ROLL CALL
Members Present: Mayor Ginny Dickey: Vice Mayor Gerry Friedel; Councilmember
David Spelich; Councilmember Sharron Grzybowski; Councilmember Alan Magazine;
Councilmember Peggy McMahon; Councilmember Mike Scharnow
Members Absent: None
Staff Present: Town Manager Grady E. Miller; Town Attorney Aaron D. Arnson; Town
Clerk Linda Mendenhall
Audience: One member of the public was present.
3. REGULAR AGENDA
A. DISCUSSION AND POSSIBLE DIRECTION: Presentation of the Initial
Assessment on the Town's Law Enforcement Services by Matrix Consulting
Group.
Greg Matthews, Senior Manager with Matrix Consulting Group provided an
overview of the initial assessment of the Town's Law Enforcement Services and
answered councils' questions.
4. ADJOURNMENT
With no further discussion, Mayor Dickey adjourned the Work Session.
The Work Session of the Fountain Hills Town Council held on September 6, 2022,
adjourned at 9:32 p.m.
ATT , AND PREPARED BY:
Li da G. Me•.enhall, Town Clerk
TOWN OF FOUN`TAAI,HI
Gin yy
FOUNTAIN
HILLS
�ayor
CERTIFICATION
I hereby certify that the foregoing minutes are a true and correct copy of the minutes of
the Work Session held by the Town Council of Fountain Hills in the Town Hall Council
Chambers on the 6th day of September 2022. I further certify that the meeting was duly
called and that a quorum was present.
DATED this 4th D of October 2022.
4=J,„oi
ndenhall, Town Clerk
inda G.
TOWN OF FOUNTAIN HILLS Page 1 of 36
SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 WORK SESSION
Post -Production File
Town of Fountain Hills
September 6, 2022 Work Session
Transcription Provided By:
eScribers, LTC.
Transcription is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not
be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
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SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 WORK SESSION
MAYOR DICKEY: We are back. We're going to open up our work study session. We
don't -- well, we're all here, so. And well get started. Grady, do you want to kick it off?
MILLER: Yes, I'll just make some introductory remarks. So, Mayor and council will
recall that the council awarded a contract to Matrix to conduct an evaluation of our law
enforcement program. And as part of that, we're trying to obtain information that could
also help us with our next intergovernmental agreement with Maricopa County's Sheriff's
Office. But a big part of this assessment was to look at various different service options
the town has for providing law enforcement services. And I think just to make sure
you're aware, tonight is just part I. Part 2 will come back in November. Tonight is just
going to be -- they're going to provide the findings too, and then they're going to try to get
from you service levels of what you think we ought to be providing as a community.
But I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Finance Director David Pock, who has some
few remarks before he introduces our team or consultant from Matrix Consulting. With
that, Mr. Pock?
POCK: All right. Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, council.
Yeah, I -- if you remember, two weeks ago we did do our fire study. That was a final
report. This is a little different. It's an initial assessment, as Grady mentioned. It's
basically going be an overview of the analysis of the data that Greg from Matrix was able
to collect, and based on that and the discussion tonight, he can go back to prepare a
final -- or a draft report to bring back at the November 1st meeting.
Just to give you a little background on Matrix, it's been around since -- or was founded in
2002. They've done over 400 different studies and analyses of different departments.
Some of those -- or over 400 clients, including Phoenix, Buckeye, and Peoria. So there is
some experience here in Arizona. We did award the contract in November of last year,
so just about ten months ago.
And that's it for now. I would just like to introduce Greg Mathews from Matrix to go
through his presentation.
MATTHEWS: Well, good evening, council and Mayor. Thank you for having me in
this workshop environment.
As I was introduced, my names Greg Mathews. I'm a senior manager with Matrix
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Consulting Group, and it's wonderful to have the opportunity to speak with you again.
As you probably remembered, I interviewed each one of you several months ago, either
on the telephone or via Zoom, so I'm happy to have an opportunity to talk with you again.
1 have a slide presentation. It has about 20 slides in it, and I can probably get through
each one of these slides in about a two -minute average. So we're looking at about a 40-
minute presentation. But given this is a workshop environment, please feel free to
interject and ask questions as we go along, and we'll have an opportunity also for
questions at the conclusion of the presentation. But I do encourage you, as we go through
this, to talk, you know, and ask me questions as we go along.
1 appreciate the background on Matrix Consulting Group. Just a little bit of background
on myself. I've probably provided this to you when we spoke, but 1 started my career in
the mid 1980s in law enforcement at Pasadena Police Department, where 1 did patrol
services. I did uncover work, vice, narcotics, and finished my career there in air support.
We actually had a helicopter in Pasadena, so I was an observer in the helicopter. And
then my first wife asked me to leave the profession right after the Rodney King riots
occurred, so I followed the instuctions of my first wife and did so and did some other
things in local government, and concluded my career as deputy director of auditing for
the City of Los Angeles, where we audited the 44 departments in L.A. And I've working
with Matrix Consulting since 2005. I'm part of their public safety division. About two-
thirds of our national work is in public safety, the other third is in other local
governments services. So that's just a little bit of background on me.
David already provided some information on Matrix, so let's go ahead and proceed a little
bit with the presentation here.
So let me just kind of remind you what the project scope of work was. It was really
intended to provide a comprehensive review of the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office
contract. And the elements of that review included looking at the terms and conditions of
the existing contract and commenting upon those in our analysis, reviewing the service
levels that you're receiving now and doing the data analysis surrounding those service
levels, and then providing to you some alternatives relative to contract services
approaches to be provided by the Maricopa County Sheriffs Office. Those are some of
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the things we'd like to discuss tonight.
In addition to MCSO, we were to assess alternative contract service delivery partners and
what are those potential partners regionally that may be able to provide service to you,
assess any interest that may have in providing that kind of service to you, and then also
another key element of this study was to address the potentials and possibilities of an in-
house police department and developing a pro forma budget surrounding what that in-
house police department would look like. So were going to talk about several of these
elements tonight, but just as a reminder, that was the project scope of work that you
contracted with us.
So what is essentially today's meeting agenda? What arc we trying to accomplish today?
So as David already suggested, this is part I of 2. This is intended to be a discussion of
the issues and assumptions and to discuss the preliminary report findings and some
broader conclusions that we have, and as we suggested, there's a precursor to the draft
report that well come and discuss with you November 1 st.
So what are the discussions and topics that we'll discuss tonight? We'll talk about the
contracted staff that you have with the sheriff's department, compared to the actual
deployment that you're receiving.
What are the patrol calls for service and self -initiated activity? I'll define that for you.
We'll have a discussion surrounding that.
What is patrol and the role of proactive time and response time in developing staffing or
recommended staffing levels? We'll do a little discussion surrounding that.
What about investigations and detective workloads? What does that look like? How
does that impact staffing? And what are the key issues presently that we see after our
review of the contract within your current contract'?
We'll talk a little bit about those potential other contract partners instead of the sheriffs
office, and then we will have an initial discussion surrounding that in-house police
department possibility.
So let's go ahead and begin. You know all this, so I'll move quickly through it. This is an
overview of your community. Your population is about 24,000 in 20-and-a-half square
miles. Your average age of your population is close to 60 years, with more than one-third
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of the population considered at retirement age, 65 plus. You're considered, based on the
data, one of the two safest residential areas in Maricopa County. So that's a highlight.
Here's some data for you just to look at. It's based on the 2020 reports that the
sheriffs office has provided to you on an annual basis. 1 don't have the '21 yet. The last
time I looked, they do have one for the entire sheriffs department, but not specifically for
Fountain Hills.
These are the major crime incidents that occurred in 2020, ranging from all Part 1
crime such as theft and burglary, vehicle theft, robberies, sexual assaults, violent --
homicides, and assaults. If you look closely at the numbers, 204 thefts, 72 burglaries, et
cetera, et cetera. Your major crime events are about 1.2 per day. So that's what that
number results in.
So fundamentally, this illustrative of a very safe community, at least as it relates
to these kind of Part 1 crime types.
So what about the staffing level comparisons? As you know, the sheriffs office
has been unable of late to provide some of the deputy staffing that they have been
contracted for.
On the left-hand side here is the contracted law enforcement positions, and they
range from decimal positions, because that's all you're being charged for. By example.
three-quarters of a captain because here in District 7, Fountain Hills is not the only
service area in District 7. So this is the model that they and you have chosen for
charging. A lieutenant at 1.25, down to 19 deputies you're contracted for. About two and
a half detectives, sergeants, some clerical, admin assistant. And then here in District 7,
you have the facility for the entire District 7 sheriffs office, and these are the numbers of
staff that are deployed presently.
One of the highlights, of course, is the number of patrol deputies. 13 patrol
deputies, this was in May of 2022, and again you're contracted for 19 deputies.
And as you're more than familiar, there has been an issue, not only here, of
course, at this sheriff's department, but nationally there's a staffing issue in law
enforcement, and this is being reflected here at the sheriffs office. So this is just a
comparison between what you're contracting for and what you're getting, and well
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discuss, based on what you're getting, what are the outcomes of that.
So let's talk in general about patrol services first. We'll give you an overview of
that. As you're all also familiar, patrol services is the core business of law enforcement,
at least local law enforcement. There's other services that are provided -- detective
services, crime prevention services, school resource officers. other things -- but this is
truly the cornerstone of local law enforcement. Fountain Hills is contracted to deploy
four deputies each shift, but presently, because of those staffing issues we just discussed,
they're deploying three deputies per shift, generally speaking.
There's patrol sergeants, which are supervisors in the field, that basically augment
patrol deputies. They are there to supervise. They are there to provide call for service
backup. They're even there to respond to calls for service as necessary. So that's part of
the staffing that you have.
Generally speaking, Fountain Hills, because of the staffing levels that they have
presently, is operating at minimum staffing levels. That would be one sergeant and three
deputies, rather than the one sergeant and four deputies that you're contracting for.
So let's talk about in the context of patrol services, what are some of the key
workload components for patrol? And what they are is community generated calls for
service; CFS well refer to it here in the presentation. You'll hear me probably refer to it
as CFS. You'll see it in the report. But those are community generated calls for service
and then there's deputy self -initiated activity. We'll talk a little bit about the difference
between those two. And then one of the key performance metrics for patrol is the
response time to your community. How quick can a deputy get to me when 1 pick up the
phone and ask for help? So that's a response time metric. We'II talk a little bit about that.
So this looks a little busy and it is, but what it is, you can see on your monitors
hopefully, is it's the calls for service data for 2021, the last calendar year. And what this
shows, it's the one on the left, is a heat map, if you will, of the busy and slower times by
day and by hour.
So if it's red or hot, those are the busier times of the day and week, and if it's
green, those are the lower or slower times for calls for service. You can look at the rows
and you can look at the columns, but fundamentally I ask you to focus in the far lower
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right comer, and you'll see the total calls for service in 2021 was 4,324 calls. Some of the
busiest times, if you'll look at Friday at 10 a.m., that's red at 51 calls. Well, what that
means is over the course of the year, at 10 a.m. on Friday, 51 calls occurred. So over the
course of the entire year, 4,324.
What did those calls look like? What kinds of calls were they coming in? And
that's the table on the right, if you will. What that is, it's a different kind of heat map.
Those bars to the right, the darker the bar the more intense or frequent that kind of call
occurred at that particular timeframe. But those are ranked numerically from top to
bottom, the frequency on what these called occurred.
So the top one was a welfare check, where we have 727 calls for service for a
welfare check of your community. The HT, the number next to the 727 for 32.6, that's
the handling time, how long did it take the deputy to handle that call once the call was
received, because the handling time's from the perspective of the recipient. Once the
call's received to the time the deputy clears, that's the handling time.
So you have your top ten call types, welfare check, a false burglary alarm,
motorist assist, suspicious activity, et cetera, et cetera, all the way down. Of particular
note, you won't sec a particularly dramatic kind of call for service in your top ten,
meaning, oh my god, I'm being robbed, can you get here? Or I've just had a burglary, can
you please get here? Or there's a major traffic accident, can you get here? It's not those
kinds of calls here in Fountain Hills.
MAGAZINE: (Indiscernible).
MATTHEWS: What I mean by what, exactly?
MAGAZINE: About the kinds of calls we get.
MATHEWS: The top ten kinds of calls you're getting are not burglaries, are not
robberies, are not thefts. They're these other kinds of calls, like a welfare check --
MAGAZINE: 1 see.
MATTHEWS: -- or a motorist assist or there's a traffic hazard in the road. So the good
news is, you're not getting calls from your citizenry saying I've been robbed or
burglarized or, you know, somebody's beating me up or something like that. These are
essentially lower priority calls and kinds of calls. And we'll talk a little bit about that too.
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So that's the call for service profile you have here in the Town of Fountain Hills.
With respect to response time, remember I said one of the measures of effectiveness of
patrol services, at least from the community's perspective, is response time, how fast does
a deputy get there when I call. And the response time is the time between I call dispatch
and the deputy gets to me. That's response time.
So the response time used by the sheriff and used by many law enforcement
agencies is based on a priority 3 level -- I, 2, and 3, I being the highest priority, 3 being
the lowest priority. With respect to response time, you can see the column that says
median RT; that's essentially the midpoint or the average response time. For a priority 1
call, let's look at that: 4 minutes. Average response time for a priority 2 call, 8.7
minutes; and 3, 11.5 minutes. This response time type, and it looks like it's a little faded
on here, but that is an exceptional response time capability that the sheriff is offering you.
Getting to a priority 1 call in 4 minutes on average or less is the goal that most law
enforcement agencies have nationally and the vast majority of them cannot meet.
Similarly, priority 2 and priority 3, generally speaking, typically law enforcement
agencies will have a 15to 20-minute response time target for priority 2, and a 30-minute
response time target for priority 3. You can see the performance that the sheriffs office
offers relative to priority I, priority 2, and priority 3. Very rapid response times. So that
is an exceptional response time and performance metric that you as a community and the
sheriff should be proud of
As we noted earlier, with respect to the kinds of calls for service, you can look
here and see in priority I, only two percent of the calls for service here are priority 1
calls. That's I'm being robbed, or there's an injury accident on the road, or something like
that. The other are priority 2 and priority 3, about 98% of the calls. Okay?
So we talked a little bit about their response time. I've given you a profile of the
calls for service, and that is particular workload that results in something that we term
proactive time.
So let me give you an overview of proactive time. Proactive time is the model
that we utilize at Matrix that basically assists us in determining your necessary staffing
levels, or what we believe are appropriate staffing levels for you. The proactive time
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model is supported by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. That's the model
that they prefer and suggest you use. You've probably heard officers per thousand,
deputies per thousand. I could spend an hour on that topic. I'm not going to. I'll just say
we don't use that. We do the proactive time model.
So what is proactive time? Proactive time is that free time a deputy is available
after they respond to a call for service and do all the things associated with the call for
service. So it's their call for service response. it's the administration surrounding calls for
service, 1 got to write a report, I'm taking somebody to jail, I have to do a jail run -- those
kinds of things.
A call for service also incorporates Deputy Mathews backs up Deputy Smith.
That's considered time dedicated to a call for service. I go help my partner out, that's
time associated with that. Then there's things that come out of proactive time such as
administrative workload. You know, I have to fuel my car, I have to go to a shift
briefing -- those kinds of things. That is deducted. And then there's meals and rest
breaks. That time is deducted.
So once I'm doing calls for service, once I'vc done my meal, once I've done my
shift break, all of these things, then what's left over is how much proactive time do I have
to do other things.
MAYOR DICKEY: Mr. Mathews, could I ask you something about that?
MATTHEWS: Please. Yeah, uh-huh.
MAYOR DICKEY: So you'll probably get to it, but in our case, we came up too, you
know, too high with that percentage. But how does that — and again, I'll be looking for
your advice. How does that translate into actual -- you could do another whole project. I
mean, you could see a bunch of different guys and gals having that -- maybe too much
proactive time, but does that translate into, okay, let's have another -- let's have a
program, maybe, that --
MATTHEWS: Yes, it does.
MAYOR DICKEY: Does it? Okay.
MATTHEWS: Absolutely. And I appreciate you reading ahead because yes, I will get
to that. We'll talk a little bit about those proactive time blocks and what you can do with
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them. But typically speaking, with respect to proactive time, what we like to sec and
what we typically -- not always, but typically -- recommend for proactive time for a law
enforcement agency is a range of 35 to 50 percent. When we see a range outside of 35 to
50 percent, that's a red flag for us. Okay? Because too much proactive time or too little
proactive time is a problem fundamentally, and well talk about, well, what kind of
problems arise from too little or too much proactive time.
But first, let's talk about what the proactive time is. And this is a table, proactive
time by four-hour time blocks for the different days of the week with the overall average
for those time blocks. And then again, I refer you to the bottom right corner, the overall
proactive time for the entire week being 73 percent. So remember, in the prior slide I
mentioned 35 to 50 percent is the proactive time range we're generally looking for.
Anything outside of that is something worth evaluating further.
If you'll look closely, it's another heat map, if you will. The dark green shows
significant proactive time by time blocks. The lighter you get, the less proactive time.
You can see it's actually reasonably busy from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Monday and
Tuesday. It's reasonably busy, but not quite as busy as 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. from 2 p.m. to 6
p.m. most of the weck -- 52 percent proactive time, 47 proactive time, those kinds or
things. But an average of 73 percent proactive time.
So back to your question about use of proactive time for projects, or those kinds
of things, let's just talk categorically about, you know, proactive time ranges and were
there issues and or not issues, or what you can do.
So 25 percent proactive time level or below, that's a real problem. Because an
agency with that overall proactive time, they're doing what I did in the '80s and early '90s
when I was in patrol at Pasadena. 1 was going call to call to call to call. If I could do a
traffic stop, that was an unusual activity. If I could take a meal, that was unusual. So 25
percent or below, you don't have any proactive time in any reasonable block of time to
say, I'm going to go park my patrol unit and do traffic enforcement. That's not really
going to happen.
The 40 percent proactive time level, however, is generally sufficient because with
this overall average of proactive time, you know, most shifts officers will have certain
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blocks available to go things. I can go do a business walk. I can do targeted traffic
enforcement. I can park my cruiser for 15 minutes and, you know, pull out, you know, at
people. At the 40 percent proactive time level, I can do some beat -specific programs that
might be appropriate to address these community issues.
Once I go up to 50 percent proactive time, then I even have more time. Just that
ten percent delta, 40 to 50, dependent upon the kind of shift, is work 8 or 12 hours; that's
another 45 minutes or an hour and 15 minutes in a day. That's some reasonable time if
you get that as a block. So I can do some additional programmatic activities. Some of
my time I'll have available to really do a foot beat, do a bicycle beat if I wish to,
something like that, work on those specific projects that the mayor suggested.
Above 50 percent proactive time, unless you're in a huge rural area -- and the
reason you have more proactive time in a huge rural area is to help facilitate those
response times because you need the time available so I can have a response time and get
across the large county 1 might be transiting. But otherwise, if you have above 50 percent
proactive time, this overall proactive time for an agency will be very challenging to keep
patrols busy regularly, and quite frankly, it's -- in our experience, talking to hundreds of
different officers and deputies -- it's difficult to keep deputies and patrol officers engaged
because ifs pretty quiet out there.
So that kind of gives you some aspects associated with different proactive time
ranges.
So what do I do with proactive time or -- and more specifically, what are the
deputies here at the sheriffs office doing for the Town of Fountain Hills with proactive
time?
You've already seen this kind of table before. It's this heat map table where you
have deputy self -initiated activities by hour of day and day of week. And a self -initiated
activity can be anything from I go out and do a traffic stop, I go do a self -initiated welfare
check. 1 decide I'm going to go do it, rather than a call for service. There's a variety of
things I can do. I can do a business walk. 1 can go into the museum and walk around.
You know, anything like that where 1 as a deputy initiate the activity, that's a self -
initiated activity.
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1 draw your attention to the lower right again. 4,213 self -initiated activities in
2021 were conducted based on the computer -aided dispatch records.
Again, the table to right, you've seen a similar table before. These are the self -
initiated activities by type, the top ten. The top one is a patrol vacation watch. I'm going
to go out and I heard Mr. and Mrs. Smith are on vacation. I'm going to go check their
house and walk around. Traffic violation: Doing a speed stop or something like that.
Follow up on a prior call: Maybe I'm working a case with a detective, something like
that. School programs: Go help the school resource officer on a school program that I've
been requested.
So these are the top ten self -initiated activities. 1,871 was the top self -initiated
activity. That represents a little more than a third of all self -initiated activities related to
that vacation watch activity.
So let's talk a little bit about summarizing self -initiated activity. In Fountain
Hills, a deputy self -initiated activity represents about the same amount of work as the
calls for service because it was in the low four -thousands; handling time was about the
same on average. So the number of calls for service, self -initiated activity, that's being
accomplished about the same. In those top ten lists of self -initiated activity, four out of
ten of them are somehow related to vehicles. Whether it's a speed stop, a motorist assist,
four in ten of them are something related to traffic or helping a motorist, something like
that. You have all articulated to me traffic is a key issue here in the community.
The most common self -initiated activity, as already suggested, is patrol vacation
watch; that's 44 percent of the self -initiated activity.
And then very little of the self -initiated activities, just as eouncilmember
Magazine -- did I pronounce that correctly? Because it's spelled like magazine; 1 hope I
pronounced it correctly — suggested earlier, what do you mean, it's not high -profile
stuff -- well, the self -initiated activity isn't necessarily high -profile either, because you're
not going out and stopping a suspicious person. You're not going out and doing a
business walk. You're not doing a field interview of somebody, why are you here and
what are you doing? It's the other kinds of things that are listed on the prior slide.
MAYOR DICKEY: I have a question. So the proactive -- it's never good to have a
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higher percentage even if you're in an area with lower crime. so to speak, so that --
because the things that they're doing during it is really useful.
MATTHEWS: The things -- yes, the things that deputies or police officers do during
proactive time can be very useful. But again, as we suggested earlier, there can be too
much free time because you can't occupy your time effectively if you're over that half my
day is dedicated to trying to do something, particularly if it's a very safe community,
because I'm not out doing aggressive preventive patrol because I have a huge burglary
problem. So if you have too much proactive time in a relatively safe community, that's
problematic.
So fundamentally, though, all proactive time irrespective of the law enforcement
agency needs to be managed effectively. So part of the proactive time that's being
accomplished now, as we suggested, those motorist assists, beat stops, et cetera, in 2021
deputies wrote citations or served vehicle warnings -- said don't speed, I'm not going to
give you a ticket, but just stop speeding -- 2,167 times. That's an average of six warnings
or citations a day.
Part, though not all, of this is captured in the self -initiated activity I showed you
in the prior table. The reason that is the case is, again, another hour of conversation that
we won't have, but the bottom line is CAD records aren't 100 percent comprehensive in
almost all law enforcement agencies. So there are other records that you can access, such
as this, that shows the number of citations and warnings that were conducted.
FRIEDEL: Can 1 ask a --
MATTHEWS: Please, yeah.
FRIEDEL: It's not a serious question, but if we get pulled over in a non -peak period of
time, can we ask the officer if this is a self -initiated activity?
MATTHEWS: You can ask him if it's a self -initiated activity. If you ask me if it was a
self -initiated activity, I would say yes, it absolutely is and I'll make sure it gets in the
CAD record so it's reflected that I'm actually doing work, so yes.
So let's talk a little bit about some of the key patrol observations related to the
calls for service, the self -initiated activity, response times, et cetera.
So Fountain Hills is a safe community; you know that. But one of the key law
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enforcement issues here is traffic related. You nearly all brought that up during our
interviews. And as you can see by the data, the data for self -initiated activity, four of
those top ten categories were related to traffic or motorist stuff.
Calls for service are generally lower priority here where call types in this
community, only two percent of them are ranked priority 1. You have a very high
average proactive time rate, 73 percent, and what's important to note, that 73 percent is
not based on your contracted level of deputies. That 73 percent is based on your
deployed number of deputies presently.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Indiscernible).
MATTHEWS: Well, higher. Yes. I wouldn't use the term worse. 1 would use the term
higher, yes.
So that's the level of proactive time at your present deployment strategies that the
sheriffs office is able to provide.
The sheriffs office, as we've already articulated, provides exceptional response
time to Fountain Hills. Many of your community members, you yourselves, as a metric.
embrace that, say, oh, that's priority one, is getting a deputy or a police officer to our
community. So that's exceptional response times.
Deputy self -initiated activity can be improved, given the amount of proactive time
you have available. So we saw the number of activities that they were conducting and
were being recorded. As you suggested, we --
Go ahead, please.
FRIEDEL: I know you said that there's staffing issues all over. Is there any relationship
between our high average proactive time and the staffing, do you think?
MATTHEWS: Well, as the mayor suggested, if you had your contracted staffing levels,
your proactive time would be higher.
So generally speaking, when we do these studies we always look at what's
deployed as opposed to what staffing was authorized, or staffing as contracted. So what
were trying to provide to you is a real-time picture of what's going on now. But if you
did have that additional deputy here, you have the three instead of the four, typically your
proactive time would be even larger, which then begs the question that this one bullet
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point suggests, is managing that proactive time. Because this one bullet point suggests
deputy proactive time utilization via self -initiated activity can be enhanced or improved.
FRIEDE: Can you look at that and say we're over -staffed?
MATTHEWS: I'm going to get to that later in the study.
MAYOR DICKEY: Another question I would have about that is do you examples of -- 1
mean, I know we all talk about community policing or helping the school district or
having a cop on the corner --
MATTHEWS: Right.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- regularly.
MATTHEWS: Coffee with the cop. or --
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah.
MATHEWS: -- yes, uh-huh.
MAYOR DICKEY: That's -- yeah. (Indiscernible) --
MATTHEWS: Right.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- corner, so -- but if you have -- do you have -- will you have
suggestions like that? I mean --
MATTHEWS: For the draft report --
MAYOR DICKEY: -- obviously, it kind of depends on --
MATTHEWS: -- for our November meeting --
MAYOR DICKEY: Yes.
MATTHEWS: -- yes.
MAYOR DICKEY: Perfect.
MATTHEWS: I will have those kinds of recommendations. But right now, I'm giving
you the finding. And the finding is that that can be improved upon.
And then further emphasis can be placed upon traffic enforcement activities
because you do have sufficient capacity to do so. Remember I said there was a little over
six traffic citations and warnings a day? As an illustration of the kinds of things that are
being performed on proactive time, just to give you a benchmark, one motor officer on a
motorcycle, typically a benchmark we recommend for their performance is one ticket or
warning an hour. So an eight -hour shift, eight tickets. Right now, the average is 6-point-
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something warnings and citations for the day.
SPELICH: It's important to note that a motor officer's main job is to respond to either
traffic accidents or to issue tickets. That's why their productivity is going to be higher
because that's job specific. So let's not take anything away from the deputies that are
working the street now. So a fair comparison would be, yeah, if we had a motor officer.
We don't have a motor officer that does motorcycle work. So —
Also, 1 wanted to point out that we had a problem first, I believe, in Fountain Hills
prior to your study and prior to this where we had a lot of senior officers that were
assigned to Fountain Hills because Fountain Hills was the retirement destination in your
career. Like on the Chicago Police Department, if you wanted, after you worked and,
you know, you were close to retirement, you would go out to either O'Hare Airport or
Midway, where you kind of finished out your career. Because the drive to do police
work, I hate to say it, diminishes with the more time that we have on the job. The more
time we have on the job, it makes us realize that we need to get off the job and our
productivity goes down.
1 think what is important to point out since Captain Kratzer has taken over is
because of his ability to staff the MCSO, this district, with newer officers who want to
come here, so we have officers that are younger who are willing to put in that work.
They're not just driving around wasting time, looking at the clock, waiting --
Did I reach my three minutes?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: 1 think you're done.
SPELICH: I'm trying to give you a compliment right now, and you're interrupting me.
Bad move.
No — so there's just some things that I wanted to point out that, you know, as we
get a little long in the tooth in our career, we kind of do a little bit less work. We are -- 1
use the word "on -view events" start to drop and everything, because basically we are
driving around waiting for the clock and waiting for the day to end. So 1 think if this
study was done when I first came onto the council, I think the numbers would be much
different than they are now. So I'm not saying there's not room for improvement. Of
course, there's room for improvement. But I just wanted to tell the other councilmembers
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that, you know, when you're talking about a motor officer, that's job specific. Just like a
homicide detective is not doing --
MATTHEWS: And that's very accurate. The intention of providing you just the output
of one motor officer is so you had a nexus between what a dedicated traffic officer can do
at eight a day versus what you have now for the patrol force. It does -- the point being, it
does suggest -- am I going to get -- 1 called him David on the phone. Is it Spelick (ph.) or
Spelich?
SPELICH: Spelich.
MATTHEWS: What councilmember Spelich suggested is -- that's absolutely right.
Typically speaking, a patrol deputy, a patrol officer in a car that has to answer calls for
service and what have you, they're not going to be able to have that level of motor officer
performance. Absolutely correct. But having said that, the more proactive time you
have, if you are directed to do traffic enforcement as one of your major activities, then
you have sufficient time to write some tickets or provide some warnings. So --
Okay. So that was some of the key patrol observations. Appreciate the questions.
I don't have to lecture that way.
So let's talk a little bit about investigations, which might be near and dear to your
hea
So let's provide an investigations overview. Presently, you're contracted based on
the formula for 2.55 detective positions. Now, similar to patrol -- and I haven't
referenced this yet in the presentation, but it is referenced in the report that you also have,
is you were assigned detective position based on beats. Now, there's something that we'll
get to the bottom of in the future report, but the model was .5 detectives per beat, and you
have about -- you have 3.8 beats in your formula. That doesn't add up to 2.55. You also
had basically one deputy per beat as part of your formula for devising your staffing plan.
You have 3.8 beats. But we'll get to talking about developing staffing plans on beat
structures, but you have detective positions based on a beat structure as opposed to
caseloads or workload activity. Okay?
So detailed investigative workload by case type -- a burglary, a robbery, a theft,
an aggravated assault, something like that -- for detectives, that data wasn't readily
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available. We couldn't get the precision or the precise data from the sheriffs office
relative to what kind of specific workloads were being worked upon. And then in the
absence of that kind of specific caseload information, it becomes more difficult for us, the
sheriffs office, you, anyone, to say, well, what should the staffing plan be if we don't
have some of that specificity in data and caseload type?
So let's talk a little bit about what data we do have relative to caseloads. We have
detective caseloads by number, how many cases were assigned for the last couple of
years. 2020 was 277 cases, 2021 was 139 cases, if I remember the subsequent slide, and
it's about 208 cases on average per year.
So let's talk about the overall observations. As you can note by the prior slide,
just by looking at the bar charts, there was a large caseload differential between 2020 and
'21. Despite this large caseload differential, detective staffing and what you were being
charged for did not shift any. You were still charged for the same number of detectives
for investigative services. For those two years, the average caseload was 208 for the 2.55
detective positions you're being charged.
So what does that result in mathematically? What that results in is 6.8 cases
assigned per month per detective position.
So you may ask, well, is that a lot? Is that a little? Is that average? What does
that even look like?
Well, since we don't know what kind of cases they were, we can talk about some
generalities. And councilmember Spelich can literally chime in. This was some of his
experience.
So our investigative experience based on our studies that we did, if you're a
generalist detective, rather than a specialist detective like a homicide detective or a
robbery detective -- but if you're a generalist detective in like a smaller agency, I can't
focus on one thing; I kind of got to do them all. 1 got to do the robbery; 1 got to do the
burglary; I got to do the theft. They can typically carry and be assigned an average of 9
to 12 cases per month. Okay? They'll get -- 9 to 12 cases will come across their desk.
That number is starting to hcad to the lower end now because of the advances in
technology, because of the forensic evidence that has to be reviewed on telephones and
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computers and things Like that. But the bottom line is, a fundamental range for a
generalist detective is 9 to 12 cases per month.
So based on the available data, at 6-point -- pardon?
SCHARNOW: I'm sorry.
MATTIIEWS: No, no. Go ahead.
SCHARNOW: Maybe this more of a question for Grady. I'm just wondering, the
contract we have -- I mean, is their flexibility year-to-year to make adjustments? Or are
we locked into certain numbers for the full length'? I'm not quite sure how that works.
MILLER: So the way the contract is written, it's basically written to be the numbers that
you see. And I believe that if we gave them advance notice, like based on the current
stats for next year --
SCHARNOW: Uh-huh.
MILLER: -- we can get adjustments made. But it's really silent on the way it is. So I
think we could do that. I would definitely want to have it be more performance -based
and were talking about a lot of different performance indicators that we want to put in
the next contract.
SCHARNOW: Because 1 know the price we get for one year is based on the previous
year. I just didn't know how much wiggle room there was in there to make adjustments,
you know?
MILLER: And councilmember Spelich, you might remember, he had brought up -- it's,
what, two years ago or so that you thought that perhaps the detectives could be better
deployed if they were working more in patrol. Because you felt like there was enough --
we were short there and that was where more of the need was.
SPELICH: Just to piggyback off of councilmember Schamow's point, it's important to
note that the number of detectives you have assigned is one thing, but what is the
clearance rate? And 1 talked to the councilmembers, and I'll just remind all of you what
the clearance rate is.
The clearance rate is -- as a detective, I could have 30 cases a month. I kind of
chuckled at 9 to 12 cases per month. That's -- in Chicago it was 9 to 12 a day. So a
detective can get a case, but what's the important factor, which I asked Captain Kratzer to
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get us this information, and I'm sure he's working on it for his next presentation, is what
is the clearance rate? As a detective, I can get 30 cases a month, but if I'm only able to
clear -- and what I mean by clear is the case (indiscernible) to an arrest, or I'm putting a
warrant out for somebody's arrest, or I have the evidence to move forward with a grand
jury indictment for a warrant for an arrest. These are all things -- and I don't know what
the clearance rate is in Fountain Hills. I've asked for that number. 1 don't know what it
is.
So you could have 2.5 detectives with a 50 percent -- and that's a really high
number -- but a 50 percent clearance rate and it's outstanding. I don't know if you're
aware of this or not. but we no longer have detectives assigned to Fountain Hills.
MATIHEW S: I am, but it's just --
SPELICH: Okay.
MATHEWS: -- it's just the number you're contracted for. Yes.
SPELICH: Right. So I think what hurt us, and once again I'll preface these remarks with
nothing against Captain Kratzer. These decisions that are made arc made much higher up
than the captain level. But what hurt us, I believe, is when MCSO took those detectives
out of Fountain Hills, put them downtown or somewhere, Lower Buckeye, wherever
they're at, and they're doing general assignments and they can work anywhere. They can
work, you know, Cave Creek, anywhere MCSO goes. So I think that was hurtful to us
because as a detective assigned to an area and you never leave that area, you begin to
know who the players are.
And what do 1 mean by who the players are? I mean, who are the habitual
criminals in town? Who are the people that commit crimes? Who are the ones that are
our go -to people every time something comes up? Burglars are burglars. They do
burglaries. They go to jail. When they get out, they do burglaries. It's what they're good
at.
So, you know, it's like, you know a CPA. A CPA's good at balancing books. No
offense, Dave. But that's what they do. They do books. Burglars do burglars. Guys that
rape or do sexual assaults, do sexual assaults. They very rarely break out into other
things that they're unfamiliar with.
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So I'm glad that you pointed it out, but 1 think a key to this, which obviously you
didn't get this information --
MATTHEWS: No.
SPELICH: -- from them, because I'm even having a hard time having them --
MATTHEWS: Right.
SPELICH: -- share it with us --
MATTHEWS: Correct.
SPELICH: -- and we pay the bill, is the clearance rate --
MATTHEWS: Right.
SPELICH: -- and 1 think in new contract negotiations, I think it would be absolutely
imperative that we get the detectives --
MATTHEWS: And well talk about that --
SPELICH: Okay.
MATTHEWS: -- in the draft reports. SPELICH: Okay.
MATTHEWS: So -- but dovetailing on his comments relative to clearance rates and
what have you is the last bullet here.
And that is -- remember going back to one of the first slides I showed you? The
kinds of priority crimes and, you know, thefts were up there and you had a couple dozen
burglaries and things like that? The kinds of cases that are going to be assigned to these
detectives fundamentally aren't going to require a huge amount of work in most
instances, because most of them, by the nature of their type of case, are not going to be
solvable and therefore are not going to be cleared. Because somebody stole my mail out
of my mailbox. Well, is there witnesses? No. Well, do you have a suspect? No. Well,
then 1 don't have a lot of work to do on it, do 1? Unless I have a pattern, but that's a
different story. Fundamentally, the bottom line, though, is the workload that the
detectives have related to the cases that they're getting from Fountain Hills is not going to
be homicide or robbery or sexual assault -related workload, typically.
MAYOR DICKEY: That's sort of what -- so I'm a little bit confused about them going
off site because I thought that the reason behind that was so they weren't going to be
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generalists, so that they would go and then --
MILLER: To their specialty.
MAYOR DICKEY: Yeah. So that's different from what my understanding was. They
left here, maybe partly because of what you're saying here about caseloads, but also that
they went to be where if we did have a burglary or something, it would go to someone
who was a specialist or, you know, is mostly familiar with that, and wherever they
happened to be located, it didn't matter as long as they were the ones that were kind of
experts with that. So I thought that's what precipitated that change, so I don't know.
MATTHEWS: In our November meeting, in the draft report, someone mentioned -- I'm
sorry, it's past midnight for me in North Carolina. But someone mentioned utilizing
patrol officers to do some casework. And many municipalities do have patrol officers or
deputies doing some casework of lower priority, if they have the capacity to do so or the
proactive time. So that's something well be discussing in the draft report.
Okay. So we talked about proactive time. We talked about self -initiated activity.
We've talked about investigative workloads. So what are some of the contract issues that
we've noted that we'll discuss in the report that require resolution?
So first of all, the staffing drivers in the contract. The historical staffing drivers
for deputies and detectives, they're based on a beat structure. They're not based on really
relevant, frankly, workload requirements such as calls for service or proactive time or
caseload standards. Now, in fairness, if a beat structure is designed such that calls for
service are equalized and what have you, one could argue that, you know, no, we're
basing it on workload. We have a four -beat structure and, you know, the calls are
equalized and whatnot. That does make some sense. But fundamentally, there's much
better ways to approach it than doing a beat because back in the day 1 used to redesign
beats. I can make this a three -beat structure, frankly, or a two -beat structure, and you
wouldn't want to staff necessarily by a beat structure. You want to staff based on
workloads.
So -- and just with respect to contracting protocols, we haven't seen a beat
structure model before. This is the first time we've seen it for a staffing model.
Beyond the response time for priority 1 calls, that as we've already said ad
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infinitum is exceptional here, you really have no performance metrics in your contract,
other than response time. We already talked about clearance rate. There are other
metrics that can be embedded in a contract to be able to manage the performance of that
contract. There are other contractual staffing model issues, frankly, in the favor of the
sheriff's office. You're being charged for three sergeants. That not enough sergeants to
manage your patrol force. You'd need a minimum, on a 12-hours shift, four. So we will
be pointing those kinds of issues out as well, as where are there shortcomings in the
sheriffs office contract that are actually shorting them, if you will.
So basically, some of the terms and conditions of the contract have opportunities
for improvement. Those are related to effective contract management. Those are related
to level of service delivery. All of those will be teased out in the draft report that we'll
discuss in November.
So what about alternative contract approaches? So part of the study was to
explore alternatives to contract service delivery beyond the sheriffs office, such as a
potential in-house police department or an alternative contract service provider. An in-
house police department staffings and costs profile, we'll develop for you, but we need a
little discussion surrounding that, in the next slide or two, and that'll be based on different
optional staffing strategies that we can discuss here momentarily.
Also we are, and I'm going to say have now, explored law enforcement service
options with Scottsdale Police Department and Fort McDowell Indian Reservation. With
respect to those two agencies, we reached out to them. And it's just not me on this
project; I have two others in the background that aren't as good-looking as me so they're
not here presenting. But fundamentally, we reached out to both Scottsdale and Fort
McDowell. They almost verbatim said, we do not have the capacity to provide services
to Fountain Hills in the foreseeable future. And that is for what we've already discussed
earlier, the same thing that the sheriffs office is suffering, staffing shortages. Scottsdale
is suffering. Fort McDowell Indian Reservation is suffering. Nationally, law
enforcement staffing is suffering. So they are not interested in providing contract
services to you in the foreseeable future.
MAGAZINE: I'm tired, so this question may not make any sense.
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MATTHEWS: Okay. That's fine.
MAGAZINE: What's the relationship between Fountain Hills being the second safest
town in Maricopa County and staffing shortages?
MATTHEWS: What's the relationship between it being the safest town and staffing
shortages? 1 would suggest there is no real nexus. The fact of the matter is, you could
have a hundred deputies here or the number you have now and perhaps less, and 1 don't
think, given presently in the short or medium term, the community profile will change
that dramatically.
MCMAHON: But wouldn't it be -- isn't it related to the type of crimes or type of
instances they're being called and -- 1 mean, we have a very low crime rate here.
MATTHEWS: You do.
MCMAHON: So given what you've shown us and what the priorities are -- well checks
and things like that -- so wouldn't that relate to the difference?
MATTHEWS: So are -- let me rephrase that. Are you suggesting that if your staffing
remains or goes higher, that your community will remain just as safe or safer?
MCMAHON: Well, no. 1 only wanted to know the relationship -- well, could you repeat
your question again? Because he wanted to know the relationship, so I was thinking that
the relationship is their workload and what they have to do. 1 mean, if we were in a very
high, unsafe crime town --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MCMAHON: -- then wouldn't that change that ratio?
MATTHEWS: Oh, yes. Absolutely.
MCMAHON: That's what 1 mean.
MATTHEWS: It'd change your ratio and it'd change your staffing levels. It'd change
the type of work that they do. Absolutely.
And it would change your focus. In other words, you wouldn't be -- you wouldn't
have had the prior discussions with me that traffic is the key issue here. You'd be saying,
we got a real burglary issue or, you know, there's sexual assaults all the time here. But
those weren't the conversations we had.
So I think the objective, of course, is to retain this safe community. So how do
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you do that? What's the best way to staff a law enforcement agency here, whether it's the
sheriffs office or something else, to retain your safe community, to address your
community issues?
So the next slide was the questions, and it does give us an opportunity to talk
about some of those key issues. And so one of the key issues is patrol services. We've
been talking about that. And your contract stipulates and you're being charged for the 19
deputies, plus the supporting staff, yet 13 deputies that was used in this model resulted in
that level of proactive time.
So the question for you becomes, when we go back and do a report -- and we're
going to recommend independently, but we -- you know, we're also here to meet your
needs. Arc you satisfied with your existing deputy staffing contingent --
MAGAZINE: So hypothetically --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MAGAZINE: -- we may decide that 13 is just fine and the next contract says 13 instead
of 19.
MATTHEWS: Correct. And you would pay accordingly.
MAGAZINE: Okay.
MATTHEWS: Moreover, importantly, remember one of the elements of this study is an
in-house police department. Is that the staffing level that you would be willing to live
with? One sergeant per shift, three patrol officers per shift. Because that would impact
the cost of your in-house police operation. More patrol officers, more cars, more radios,
more equipment --
MAYOR DICKEY: But beyond -- right. Because of the radios --
MATTHEWS: Right.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- and the equipment, and you also had mentioned -- I don't
remember now what it was, but it was some kind of a service that we were getting that
we weren't technically paying for, and so part of -- when we say we're paying for 19, but
then the contract actually is for us to pay for the previous year's expenses, so I -- it never
really works out because we're obviously getting good service, you know, on many of
these measures and we're paying for what did that the year before, and whether it's 9 or
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13 or a deputy who's stepping in, so -- I think there's room for improvement both on their
side and on our side. But I'm not sensing we really want to change the result very much,
because the results are good. So --
MATTHEWS: So and that is some of the work direction we can talk about now. You
can talk about over the next couple of weeks, you can get back to me. We're going to
give you the Matrix recommendation. But really what you're fundamentally looking at is
your contract number, a sergeant and four deputies in patrol, or a sergeant and three
deputies in patrol and that's what you go with because that's what you're getting and
that's what these numbers are based on.
MAYOR DICKEY: But how do we make sure that you're also taking into account not
only all of the capital equipment that we would have to get, but also, you know, the
SWAT and the other things we get because of the vastness of MCSO?
MATTHEWS: Correct.
MAYOR DICKEY: You know, how do we put our -- now, do we have those things
happening every day? No. But the other day -- well, a couple weeks ago, somebody was
missing and there was a helicopter looking for them.
MATTHEWS: Right.
MAYOR DICKEY: So if we don't -- we would have to have a helicopter then or
whatever, so I think, is everything going to be part of this or is it just --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- people? Is it just staffing?
MATTHEWS: So when we build the model associated with an in-house police
department, we will build those ancillary services in. What typically happens is one of
two things. Nationally, is a large law enforcement agency such as a sheriff's department
or a sheriffs office will, through mutual aid, provide these kinds of services pro bono,
like the helicopter observation that you provided, or will have a fee associated with the
costs to operate the helicopter $375 an hour so, you know, we'll do this and bill you back,
so you wouldn't have to get it yourself.
So -- and we'll talk about those two independent models, but given the
professionalism of the vast majority of sheriffs offices in the United States, if you have a
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need, they're going to come help you. And they'll probably come help you without
charging you. But the question remains for Fountain Hills is how often arc you going to
need a dive team? Or how often are you going to need SWAT? Or how often are you
going to need the helicopter? And the answer is, probably very infrequently. So -- but
we'll discuss that in the draft report.
I think fundamentally the question remains at the baseline patrol level. Are you
all okay based on the data with what you're getting right now? Or would you prefer what
the contract stipulates, another deputy?
SPELICH: Thank you, Madam Mayor. First off, I believe that a lot of Fountain Hills
safety is baked into where were located geographically. What is our biggest complaint?
What will Amanda or Rachael or anybody say when they say, well, you know, we got to
get people to come out to Fountain Hills? Well, what's their main beet? It's so far.
Well, criminals think the same thing. A criminal, okay -- I mean, I'm not trying to
be funny, but it is kind of funny. A criminal is not going to drive all the way to Fountain
Hills to do a residential burglary when he can drive three blocks out of Phoenix into
Scottsdale or Paradise Valley and get what he wants. We have residential burglaries in
this town and everything because burglars go where the money is. You don't go and
commit a burglary in the projects. You're not going to come up with much. They don't
have anything to steal. So geographically were located in a really good spot because
we're hard to reach. That's for people that want to spend money here and that's for people
that want to take money here. So that's a good thing.
The other thing is, is -- and I understand what the mayor is saying, but I'm going
to give the analogy that if any of us on this council went to go buy a new car, and let's say
were going to go look at a BMW and a BMW is 60,000, and we give the guy a check for
60 grand and he pulls up a Chevy Malibu, were all going to be pissed. And we're all
going to go, wait a minute, 1 just cut you a check for 60 grand. You told me you were
bringing up a beamer, and instead you brought me up a Chevy. Nothing against Chevys.
But I'm just saying — I said this from the very start. I campaigned on this from
the very start. MCSO is not fulfilling their contract to the town residents of Fountain
Hills. Yes, crime is low. Crime is relative -- you said the second-best in the entire state
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of Arizona. That's great. That's something really great to be proud of But also, we're
stewards of taxpayers' money. We're not getting what were paying for. So therefore we
need to get what we pay for or get a refund in what we've been paying for that we haven't
gotten.
As it relates to a SWAT team, a SWAT team has come out here to service some
high -risk warrants and stuff like that. We don't need a SWAT team. We sure as hell
don't need a helicopter. They're good, but they're really expensive and we don't need
them. For the first ten years that 1 was on the Chicago Police Department, the City of
Chicago didn't have a helicopter. Let that sink in. The City of Chicago did not have a
helicopter until somebody donated one and then we got one, just like how we get our
horses for the mounted unit. We get them donated. Glue factory or go on the Chicago
PD and ride on the lakefront. Good choice for the horse.
So I'm just saying that it's all relative, but my bottom line with this whole thing
and what I've been professing to this council and the council that left and everything is,
let's just get what we're paying for. Yes, we have low crime rate. Yes, the sheriffs
deputies are doing their job and everything, but we're still being overcharged for a
service, and I believe that we should drill down on this and start getting what were
paying for, and I don't think a good option is to get less. I don't think it's ever -- 1 mean,
it's good to have Tess cancer. It's not good to have less police. So if we're paying for --
what did you --
MATTHEWS: If you're paying for four, it sounds like councilmember Spelich is saying,
you should have four deputies.
SPELICH: A hundred percent. And --
MATTHEWS: Rather than the three you have now, which gives you the performance
metrics you have before you.
SPELICH: Correct.
MATTHEWS: Okay.
SPELICH: And 1 don't think a good rational argument is -- and I'm not saying what you
said was incorrect, because recruiting is at an all-time low.
MAYOR DICKEY: Uh-huh.
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SPELICH: Who would want the job of a police officer when you can't turn on the TV
and they're not saying you're the absolute scum of the earth? No one wants that job.
Hey, people think my job is really crazy. God, 1 want to sign up.
So yeah, staffing is an issue. But staffing being an issue is not the issue of the
Town of Fountain Hills. That staffing issue is with MCSO. Pay your deputies more and
do better at recruiting and you'll get more people. But what MCSO does is bring people
in for less pay. They get certified, post -certified, and the minute they get post -certified,
Scottsdale or Paradise Valley or some other department offers them more money and
they leave, which is just -- of course, we all do that. Teachers do that. Anybody goes for
more money.
So that -- saying that, you know, well, recruitment is an issue, I agree with you.
Nationally, recruitment is an issue. But that's not the issue of Fountain Hills. That's the
issue that lies with MCSO. Once again, fulfill your contract.
MAYOR DICKEY: 1 have to respond to that because of what you said about the contract
part, because it's been this way, that we pay for the service we get from the year before.
So, you know, we have responsibility that this contract had a number of patrols that
wasn't really needed. So it's a number on a piece of paper. But to say that we're not
getting what we paid for, I don't agree with that because we're getting -- we pay for what
the expense was from the year before, however that worked out. So whoever was being
paid, whether it was a patrol person or such, so we have responsibility for this disconnect
between our contract and what was provided, and in addition, your report is saying that
neither one is really following best practices. So trying to get both together is probably
better for both entities.
SPELICH: Yeah, I understand what you're saying, mayor, but it's important to note that
these staffing issues and us not getting what we're paying for is not just this year. It's not
just this contract. We haven't been getting what we've been contracting with for a
minimum of four years, a minimum of four years. And believe me when 1 tell you, I am
not making this political. This is not because Sheriff (indiscernible) sits in office. If we
go back, I'm sure when Sheriff Joe (ph.) was in office we -- I don't think we were getting
exactly what we're paying for. So regardless of who was in office, I believe that this isn't
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just a contract issue of short staffing that happened just this year. This has been an
ongoing issue that I've continuously brought up to this council, and we now are drilling
down on it and finding out it's true. So yes, 1 understand what you're saying about it
being the year before, but four, five, six years in a row, not getting what we're paying for,
is not acceptable.
FRIEDEL: The numbers and -- have the numbers that we've been contracting for
changed over the last five years?
SPELICH: Yeah, they're going up like crazy.
FRIEDEL: No, I'm saying -- oh, the number of deputies and that? No, they've been
relatively the same, right? So the contract has been the contract, we've just been
renewing it. So --
SPELICH: And paying more.
FRIEDEL: And paying more, but getting Tess.
SPELICH: (Indiscernible) not fulfilling the contract.
FRIEDEL: Well, I look at it as getting Tess because they're not fulfilling the contract.
SCIIARNOW: Well, 1 guess maybe we have to wait until November, but, you know, I'm
wondering how do we detemtine what we get what we're paying for? 1 mean, we had this
audit done. We have the study we paid money for. So we're not going to be doing that
every year, you know. And Greg, you talk about the beats system and that goes back to
day one, right? And 1 don't know, 1 imagine the sheriffs office came up with that as a
means to --
MATTHEWS: Well, I'm sure they did.
SCHARNOW: -- try to itemize the contract and, you know, and if we go by caseload, as
1 think what I'm hearing you're suggesting is a better method. 1 mean, are you going to
recommend -- besides our own PD, arc you going to recommend a major overhaul of how
we do the contract --
MATI'HEWS: Yes.
SCHARNOW: -- if we keep--
MATTHE W S: Yes. And that will be a component, is that major overhaul. And let me
say something that should be perceived as defensive of the sheriffs department, and that
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is this. You know, as I've discussed with all of you one on one, we do this all over the
country. And you know, just very recently, you know, as I was doing some more
research for this study, 1 discovered that the sheriffs office literally has only a half dozen
contracts here in the county, and you are the largest one at 23,000, you know, 800 people.
Most of their clients are 6,000 or under that they're contracting with. So in fairness to the
sheriff, frankly, there's never really been a requirement, and I'm going to use this term not
pejoratively but hopefully accurately, to be sophisticated in their contract development.
There's communities where 1 used to live in California, in the Inland Empire, San
Bernadino County, the sheriffs office has contracts with nearly a dozen and a half
agencies. Some of the cities are 170,000 people. So the contracts that -- and the terms
and conditions of those are sophisticated and they're also based on longstanding,
relatively complicated fonnulas that sometimes, though not always, embrace best
practices.
The sheriffs office here hasn't just really had the opportunity to do that because
they're not working with contracts like that on a regular basis. So one of the things that
we hope to bring is some of those best practices to you, so that you can have a discussion
with the sheriff, saying hey, these arc some contract best practices. You know, we'd like
you to implement these. And hopefully, you know, the sheriff will say, oh, those arc
good ideas. We might be able to use them for the other six agencies that we work with.
So that's something you need to be aware of.
FRIEDEL: Didn't they just leave Queen Creek?
MILLER: They did, yeah.
FRIEDEL: And Queen Creek, 1 don't know how many residents they have there.
MILLER: Queen Creek had already started with their own police department when this
project commenced, so it wouldn't have been in their scope to find that out. Yeah.
SCHARNOW: Well, Grady, you know, and 1 know maybe this is too sensitive to ask,
but you know, I mean, arc we going to have that kind of Flexibility moving forward, do
you think, with the sheriffs office in terms of changing -- you know, getting a more
sophisticated formula --
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MILLER: You know--
SCHARNOW: -- and all that? 1 mean, more --
MILLER: -- 1 have to tell you that the staff has been really good at the command level in
working with -- there's a few things that kind of happened that were surprises to us, like
when they consolidated the detectives into the downtown area and they didn't consult us.
They just did it. Those are types of things that really should be in the contract and just
really explain what our desires are and what they ought to be and have to spelled out.
1 think were going to have a great opportunity going forward. You know, were
going to take a look at the possibility of what it would take to bring this in-house. We're
going to probably find that in-house, there's no way we can afford it.
So -- but 1 do think that were going to be looking at performance metrics to
include in a contract. 1 already talked about, you know, response time's already in there
now, but I do think there's going to be some other things that we want to include in there.
1 like the idea of having caseload or workload in there, but in the end, it's all about FTEs
or full-time equivalents. So I still think you need to have like how many deputies -- I
mean, you still have to have that number. We can get away from the beats because when
we were talking and doing the financial assessment, their budget and finance person
really wasn't familiar with the beats. And we had -- she had the wrong FTEs, and we
said, no, no, no, no. If you look at the contract or the intergovernmental agreement, it's
spelled out how many FTEs were per beat, and so we were able to get that explained to
them. So again, even at their administrative levels, that are the folks that support the
sheriffs office, don't necessarily —
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right.
MILLER: -- always understand what the beat number is. So 1 say, get rid of that for sure
in the next agreement and just spell it out. And 1 think that we need more plainer
language going forward and, again, having some performance measures.
You know, I think you've done a great job tonight with your -- going through the
findings and there's some really good things I think you're going to be able to bring to us
in November. So 1 -- I'm looking forward to seeing that.
MATTHEWS: So based on this discussion, any particular work direction? 1 heard from
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councilmcmber Spelich that he thinks you should have four deputies. We're going to
give you our recommendation, but we'll also build a model, you know, surrounding that.
Do you have any other guidance?
MAGAZINE: 1'd like to know -- I'm not saying we shouldn't have four deputies or that
we shouldn't have 19 patrols, but I want to know what the difference in cost would be.
MATTHEWS: Well, well articulate that --
MAGAZINE: Well, how much --
MATTHEWS: — in a draft report.
MAGAZINE: -- if we went with what we have, how much would we save?
MATTHEWS: And that'll be in the draft report.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Right.
MATHEWS: Absolutely. All of those numbers will be costed out.
SPELICH: Just briefly, and I know everybody's tired and we all want to go home, but 1
don't -- any of the subjects that I've discussed with the councilmembers and the mayor
and everything, this is not geared towards trying to get rid of MCSO.
Is my ultimate fantasy or whatever you want to talk about law enforcement
related'? That I would like my own police department in Fountain Hills? Absolutely. I
would love to see Fountain Hills have its own police department.
Do I think that MCSO is doing a good job'? Yes, I do. My main concern is we're
getting what we paid for and that they're fulfilling their end of the contract.
And I will be totally upfront and honest with you. I have not even talked to you
about numbers. We've never discussed numbers, correct?
MATTHEWS: No. Correct.
SPELICH: 1 can guarantee you that all of you up here, if you had heartburn over what
you saw was the fire contract, keeping in mind we own everything that the fire
department has here, minus just bodies and a truck, the going and getting your own police
department -- I recommend all of you call your general practitioners and get a minimum
of 10 mg of Valium and take itjust before he makes his presentation, because your heads
are going to explode. It's going to be a big number. But what 1 like about this, itjust
affirms the fact that we're not getting what were paying for and we need to focus on
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finetuning that contract so that we get exactly the service that we need and we deserve.
SCHARNOW: Thank you, David, for those comments. And I mean, if you were to ask
me 20 to 25 years ago when we had the marshal's department and we were getting a ton
of grants and new cars and building up -- I mean, we were like this close to getting our
own police force. And I was at the newspaper at the time, and I still don't know exactly
what happened, but you know, they pulled the plug on it and the die was cast more or less
back in those days. So if we could have had it at that point, it didn't happen.
And then, to Greg, you know, arc you going to delineate some recommendations
on the proactive time in terms of how that can be better utilized or suggest some
programs or --
MATTHEWS: Absolutely. All of that will be embedded in the report. So we'll give you
different options --
SCHARNOW: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: -- with different costs associated with those options. We'll give you our
recommendation, you know.
SCHARNOW: Well, I don't know if there'd be any more costs involved if they're already
on duty and they're--
MATTHEWS: Well, there would be costs --
SCHARNOW: -- doing other --
MATHEWS: -- between a contract that deploys three deputies and one sergeant versus
four deputies and one sergeant.
SCHARNOW: 1 understand that, but --
MATTHEWS: And we would tell you what councilman Magazine said, we'll give you
that delta. What would he the cost? What would be that delta for an in-house police
department?
SCHARNOW: No, I --
MATTHEWS: You know, well give you a couple of different staffing models, plus
here's -- staffing model A and B. If we were God, you know --
SCHARNOW: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: -- we'd tell you A. So -- we'll do that.
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SCHARNOW: No, I understand all that. I'm just -- 1 guess I'm honing in on the
proactive time in terms of --
MATTHEWS: What to do with proactive time?
SCHARNOW: Yeah. Like--
MATTHEWS: Yes. We'll give you some suggestions on how to better utilize proactive
time.
SCHARNOW: I mean, and is that something we could even write in a contract, or --
MATTHEWS: You can. Yes. You can devise performance measures around the use of
proactive time. Like, you will do X number of traffic stops. You know, that would be an
expectation that -- now, having said that —
SCHARNOW: Uh-huh.
MATTHEWS: -- I can also tell you the sheriff might not want to go for that.
SCHARNOW: Well, that's --
MATTHEWS: But I can -- that's something you negotiate with him.
SCHARNOW: Well, that was my next point.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
SCHARNOW: If you ask for too much, 1 mean, it's like were, you know, we're -- I'm not
saying we're being held captive, but in a certain sense we don't have a lot of choice here,
MATTHEWS: Well, and there's two elements to that since, you know, between us
chickens all in the room, which is everybody here, but the bottom line is, you don't. You
don't have a lot of choice other than your own police department or continuing with the
sheriff. But having said that, you're also the 800-pound gorilla of contract agencies for
Maricopa County. It's a small gorilla, maybe it's not 800 pounds because you're only
23,000, but everybody else is 6,000 or 2,000 people, so --
MAYOR DICKEY: I think one of the things that we had in the past was a flexible, like,
depending on what was going on that year. So one time we wanted, you know,
community policing. Another time, if there was all of a sudden a lot of speeding or --
MATTHEWS: Uh-huh.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- whatever. So we did have that built into our contract that we
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were able to say, well, look what's going on, or fentanyl, or something, you know.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MAYOR DICKEY: So basically, if we could have something like that, some suggestions
of things that would be good and conducive to our community --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MAYOR DICKEY: -- and then -- but it doesn't mean we have to do that for the five
years of the contract, you know?
MATTHEWS: Correct.
MAYOR DICKEY: You know, maybe something else is going to happen then.
MATTHEWS: Again, as I suggested, you could do this in side letters, you know.
FRIEDEL: Did you look at all -- 1 know they have their own pension plan. Does that
come into this discussion at all? Since we're the biggest contract with them, do we have
the biggest piece of the liability with that pension plan?
MATTHEWS: 1 haven't driven yet to that level of detail in the contract. I can't answer
that for you yet.
MILLER: Vice -mayor, we're so small compared to the rest of the -- I mean, they're in
this huge multimillion budget -- that our pro rata share, while it's significant to us because
it's, you know, it is growing and it's a large number, it's -- they're not like hitting us with
more than just our pro rata share, so -- any more than the other agencies around the valley
and their local police departments arc to them.
MAYOR DICKEY: And also that we -- this agreement is actually with Maricopa
County, the county supervisors, so that's something that we were talking about earlier,
too, so --
Anything else?
I hear a no.
Well, I'm just going to go ahead and adjourn us. How's that?
MATTHEWS: Very good.
MAYOR DICKEY: We're adjourned.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you.
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