City Council Budget Proposal

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City Council Budget Proposal
The North City has a population of 200, 000 and is still growing, it has three operational hospitals and receives 10 million visitors per year. The city has an almost balanced gender distribution of mostly white citizens doing business or in the management positions. The average age of its citizens stands at 35 years with many people having family households made up of three members. And it is home to NFL football team, where a majority of the residents watch the game in the stadia.
The police department is well equipped with 407 sworn officers who work as patrol officers, detectives, sergeants, lieutenants, and commanders in charge of patrol, investigations, and special operations. There is the chief of police and assistant chiefs. The 200 civilian personnel handle radio, records, police aides, crime scene personnel, and lab scientists. There are approximately 600 employees in the police department comprising the sworn officers and civilian personnel.
Our team approach to making budget cuts is to look at the current budget and see how, where, when and what can be cut and still have an effectively working police department. During our deliberations, we thought in terms of staffing, equipment, training, and assignments. Looking at each area we made efforts to make cuts while still ensuring the police department remains functional and effective in its duty of maintaining law and order while securing the city. The following are areas where budget cuts can be made.

Estimated Budget Cuts
Description Areas Percentage Reduction Recommendations
Staffing and assignments Salaries 30% Work pay method of remuneration
Overtime 30% Using current technologies
Longevity pay 50% Reduced in 10 years span
Travel / Lodging 20% Limited travel cost
Using cost efficient lodging accommodations
Equipment and units Helicopter unit 30% Low cost maintenance
Reduce number of units
Vehicle Maintenance 50% Abridged
Using fuel efficient vehicles
Bicycle unit 30% Reduce number of units
Uniforms / clothing allowance 20% Seeking out cheaper vendors
Training Patrols 20% On job training
Mentorship
Investigations 20% Mentorship
Workshops held be experienced detectives
Special Operations 20% Simulations
Use advanced technologies
Professional services Liability (Tort) Insurance 30% Lower the cost of insurance per individual
Legal services – tort defense 20% Utilization of technology for research and assistance
The team noted that it is important for the department to put efforts into the usage of modern technological equipment in aiding in law enforcement. Technologies can be used to save space on storage as information is electronically stored and easier to retrieve. Initially, the cost of training may be high since all officers would need to be IT literate and they all should be able to handle simple administrative tasks and record their cases well, this cuts down on the number of civilian personnel who handle records.
Training is of value in ensuring a safe place to reside, work, and run business enterprises. In addition to academy training for the sworn–in officers, the department heads should develop a mentorship program and encourage the older and more experienced officers to pass on their expert knowledge and experiences (both office and field) to the newer and younger officers. On the other hand, officers will attend seminars and workshops to beef up their knowledge on policing and securing the residents, visitors, and property. The police department staffs are encouraged to do enroll in online training programs and diversify their knowledge base because the criminals are getting the upper hand when accessing available information on online platforms.
On staffing, our team suggested adaption of fewer and efficient staff in all units. Using highly motivated personnel ensures better quality of work done. Furthermore, the less the number of personnel, the lower the operational costs like water and electric bills, parking spaces, and demand for working space. The helicopter unit consumes the most monies and its reduction by thirty percentage means other units have more money to handle the effort of securing the city. Helicopter chases can be substituted for using motorcycles which are equally fast and have easier access to narrow footpaths; tracking equipment can also be used to get criminals. The patrol teams can use motor vehicles with low fuel consumption while handling traffic offenders who are not very dangerous and they may use motorcycles for additional support.
The police department should adopt the work pay method of remuneration to cut salaries for sworn officers and the civilian personnel. The more work one does the higher the pay they take home, this would also act as a motivating factor for the department personnel to work hard in enforcing the law within their jurisdiction. Research shows that many organizations have cut down their overtime expenditure using advanced technologies (Jimenez 499); the police department in North City can adopt the system as a measure to reduce costs. Modern computer systems are efficient and work faster hence staffs finish their assignments on time, hence cutting overtime expenses. Computers also enable easier communication between staff members, at the same time the e-mail services reduces postage costs (Jimenez 507).
Loveday (122) noted that police departments can outsource administrative functions in an effort to minimize their operational costs. This action also gives the chief and assistant chief of police an easier job of managing only the sworn-in police officers. While advocating for outsourcing Ingels et al. (19) states “police departments become more effective and efficient as all officers concentrate on enforcing the law as opposed to doing administrative tasks.”
Proposed Police Department Budget
Police Services Current Budget Estimated Percentage Cuts Projected Budget
Salaries and Pay
Sworn officers and Civilian salaries $77,000,000 30% $53, 900,000
Overtime $4,000,000 30% $2,800,000
Salaries PT $500,000 $500,000
Holiday Pay $140,000 $140,000
Premium Pay $100,000 $100,000
Shift Differential Pay $45,000 $45,000
Longevity Pay $200,000 50% $100,000
Supplies / Contractual Expenses
Travel & Lodging (training and investigations) $55,000 20% $44,000
Training $75,000 $75,000
Recruitment (travel included) $25,000 $25,000
Contractual Services (misc.) $10,000 $10,000
Communications Upgrades and Software $35,000 $35,000
Computer Services, Materials & Supplies $40,000 $40,000
Vehicle Maintenance $140,000 Abridged 50% $70,000
Helicopter Unit $7,500,000 30% $5,250,000
Postage $5,000 $5,000
Dues & Subscriptions $500 $500
Publications/Printing $2,000 $2,000
Clothing Allowance (Uniforms) $400,000 20% $320,000
Fire extinguishers EMS Vehicle Supplies $2,200 $2,200
Fuel Maintenance $280,000 $280, 000
Bicycle Unit Maintenance $13,500 7% $12, 555
Capital (large-scale) Equipment Replacement $485,000 $485,000
General Contractual Expenses $9,500 $9,500
Professional Services
Liability (tort) Insurance $2,000,000 30% $1,400,000
Legal Services – Misc. $5,000 Legal Services – Tort Defense $320,000 20% $256,000
Legal Services – Labor $40,000 $40,000
Public Relations $2,000 $2,000
Total
Total $93,427,700 $65,948,755
From our computation a total of $27,478, 945 dollars have been cut off from our current budget, this figure accounts for 29.41% reduction in budget allocation.
Conclusion
The times of fiscal decline have presented our city officials an opportunity to transform our local government into a leaner, efficient and effective organization by cutting programs, services and personnel that are not essential in securing our city. Adopting new strategies in planning for our resources means that service delivery will not suffer (Jimenez 501). Strategically we gathered information, did consultations in our budget cutting process.
The budget cuts are not meant to aggravate the security sector or undermine the effectiveness of any police unit, department or sector (Ebdon 273). All we were aiming at is to reduce operational costs in line with projected budget cuts as the city manager proposed. We urge all the citizens of North City to continue working with security agencies to ensure their own personal safety, their personal and public property. We encourage the police department staffs to be creative and innovative in solving security problems, they should look for alternative ways of doing their work in the face of budget cuts.

Works Cited
Ebdon, Carol. “Beyond the public hearing: Citizen participation in the local government budget process.” Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management 14.2 (2002): 273.
Ingels, Jonas, and Broos Maenhout “The impact of overtime as a time-based proactive scheduling and reactive allocation strategy on the robustness of a personnel shift roster” Journal of Scheduling (2017): 1-23.
Jimenez, Benedict S. “Smart cuts?: Strategic planning, performance management and budget cutting in US cities during the great recession.” Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management 26.3 (2014): 494-526.
Loveday, Barry. “Police management and workforce reform in a period of austerity.” Police services. Springer International Publishing, 2015. 115-127