The way the budget works is this: Every department comes and makes a presentation to the council about their department and the amount of money they need. Staff will also provide a list of things they want but don’t have the money for. If, during (or after) the presentation, a council member wants to review an item (staff/budget/supplemental request) for addition or deletion, that item goes onto the “Open item list”. The open item list is then reviewed during the markup session where the council decides what things from the open item list go into the budget and what dies.
One of the things that I (pretty sure it was me, if not I apologize) placed onto the open item list was a request from the police department for 4 more uniformed police officers. I support this because the police have formed a “Street Crimes” Unit (SCU). The SCU is responsible for stamping out crime in hotspots and can move quickly between them. Their main charge, as I understand it, is quality of life crimes and street level theft and vandalism. They may also be used in an overflow capacity for more serious crimes. I support this concept 100%. So, you might ask, what’s the problem?
Well….currently, the Steet Crimes Unit (SCU) is staffed only if all officers report for duty. This is not normally the case – some are out sick, hurt, deployed to Iraq, training or we may just be short of guys. This being the case, the SCU is hardly ever staffed. Adding 4 officers would allow us to staff the SCU on a more consistent basis.
I’m currently working out how to pay for these guys w/o increasing real estate taxes. This does mean that it will have to come from elsewhere in the budget but I think the money is there. I’ll post again when I have a better idea of what will happen with this. Let me know what you think.
March 16, 2007 at 8:09 pm
This is a very encouraging step the MCDP is taking with this SCU. Maybe some creative funding would get you the money if it fails to show forth behind the funds lost-and-found fund. Say a voluntary donation, but hope to get $10 per family who live in the City of Manassas. Realizing some would give zero and some would give generously well beyond $10. When you give people the power to decide ‘how much’ often it passes the wildest expectations of generosity. The tax increase, someone else decides and you are mandated to pay.
March 16, 2007 at 8:41 pm
Andy,
I was going to talk at the public hearing last monday but was talking to someone I hadn’t seen in awhile and didn’t hear the Mayor get ready to close the public hearing.
One thing the City can not scrimp on is public safety. I hear violent crime is up and we need all of the tools to combat this. How much does the firing range cost? Maybe that could be put off for another year. Or maybe we could go in with the Park and the county to build a regional one.
Keep up the good work.
March 16, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I’ve found the money in the existing budget….with a little help. I’m not going to talk about where that money will come from until I talk to my fellow council members. They are smart dudes and my ideas may not be very good ones. We’ll see.
The firing range will cost 1.5 million or so. The public safety tax thing will pay for it if it passes. I support it but probably not at 3 cents. We should IMHO do a public/private deal like we did with the animal shelter and hold the tax to 1 cent. I want to give the citizens a break.
March 17, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Today’s Wapo has an interesting chart on page A4 pertaining to
high cost refi and first time loans – Manassas and Manassas
Park are behind only PG in %. This doesn’t look good and
local officials need to be aware of it during budget discussions.
Simply, marginal borrowers with high interest and/or ARMS may
get in trouble in a flat or declining market and have no way to
bail themselves out – leading, under worse cases, to foreclosure
which can start a downward spiral. (Remember the Resolution Trust?)
Predict those dark clouds will go away by early next year, but
we still need to make note of them as local budgets are crafted.
March 17, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Dear Andy,
As usual, you are doing a great job on what must be a tedious task. (Going over the budget line by line.) Your idea of having a public/private deal for the police firing range makes a lot of sense. The Manassas P.D. isn’t large enough (like PWC) where a firing range will be utilized on a full time basis year round. If the City was to partner up with a private entrepeneur and the range was open to the public (for a fee) when the City P.D. wasn’t using it, depending on the type of agreement reached with the private partner, the City could expect a positive revenue stream from the joint enterprise making the range an asset to the City coffers. This could free up the public safety tax thing to fund more police officers and would give the citizens a safe place to shoot. Currently our citizens have to travel to Woodbridge, Chantilly or NRA Headquarters in Fairfax for year round in-door shooting ranges.
March 17, 2007 at 4:53 pm
“How much does the firing range cost? Maybe that could be put off for another year.”
Maureen, I would think if public safety is the priority, we don’t look for cuts or deferments within thepublic safety budget. As a shooter, I know where the available small arms ranges are. I have to travel to woodbridge or chantilly to practice. I don’t know of any place that an officer can practice at, other than these two ranges. I am often shooting in a lane next to a PWPD or Fairfax County PD officer. We want our officers to be proficient with their duty side-arms. We don’t want them to have to travel elsewhere for their practice.
“Simply, marginal borrowers with high interest and/or ARMS may
get in trouble in a flat or declining market and have no way to
bail themselves out…”
Great point Big Dog. I have to wonder how much of this is caused by illegal immigration. I would imagine a large percentage. I know a real-esate agent. She told me that a lot of these overcrowded houses were purchsed with sub-prime mortgages. Two in my neighborhood in fact. I noticed that they are empty now, and it looks like the owner is cleaning it up to sell. This may further exacerbate the decline in tax revenues.
March 18, 2007 at 8:26 am
Dear Maureen,
The police must qualify with their side arms at least once a year to be certified by the state. The City police and PWC both have firearms training and qualifications twice a year which should make our citizens happy that the police are taking an extra step to ensure that they can shoot safely if they have to deploy their weapons. In the past, the City Police could use the Southern Railway firing range for free. But the range was outdoors and was closed down for a variety of reasons (mostly safety). Currently, the City police have to rely on the charity of other lawenforcement agencies to borrow their shooting facilities. This last fall the City police had to, if I’m not mistaken, travel to Orange County, Va. to use the shooting facilities down state. That required plenty of gas and extra man hours per officer to get his training.
The PWC police would like to help out, but their range facilities are inadequate for their own needs. PWC runs its own police academy and besides having to qualify its some 750 officers twice a year on their range, they usually have a least two academy classes a year that require extensive training and resources because many of the recruits have never shot a gun before in their lives. Where does that leave our City police? Step-children or perhaps orphans! Our citizens need to be assured that our police have a closeby range where they can qualify and get extra practice. In PWC they have open range days to encourage their officers to practice more than the required twice a year. In reality, the hand-eye coordination used to shoot a hand gun is the most rapidly lost skill that an officer has. The FBI Hostage Rescue Team qualifies with their side arms every TWO WEEKS.
Steve Thomas points out above, when he goes out to shoot his hand gun(s), he sees police officers practicing at commercial ranges–that is at the officer’s own expense and he or she is doing that out of a heightened sense of duty to ensure the public’s safety and to make sure if the time ever comes that they have to draw their weapon, they’ll be going home to their families and the bad guys are going to the morgue.
March 18, 2007 at 10:00 am
What does everyone think of hiring more officers for the SCU?
March 19, 2007 at 7:30 am
Andy, you know me. I am a fiscal conservative. However, one area of the budget that I oppose slashing, and usually support increasing is public safety. A quick glance at the crime section of our local fish-wrap, would indicate that street crimes are on the rise. I am in favor of hiring the assets to dedicate to the unit. We can assess at the next budget cycle if the additional resources had the desired impact.
March 22, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Thanks everyone for the information.
March 22, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Dear Andy,
More officers….NOW!!!
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