Task force hears from former Riley County chief about police consolidation
By Scott Rochat
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Riley County's former top cop told a Lyon County task force Thursday that merging the police and sheriff's departments can work -- but only if all the players want it to work.
To date, Riley County is the only county in Kansas to have a completely consolidated police department. Voters approved the move in 1972 and the new department went into action in 1974. And one reason it happened fairly smoothly, former police director Al Johnson said, is that neither the police chief nor the sheriff opposed it.
"You have to have the support of both for the process," said Johnson, who headed the consolidated police department from 1978 to 2000 and is now a Riley County commissioner. "If one or the other chief is against it, I don't think it can be done."
That's exactly what Lyon County's consolidation task force wants to know -- can it be done here? The group, which includes both city and county residents, is trying to see whether consolidation would save money and produce more efficient law enforcement. A report was originally planned for August, but chairman Marshall Miller has suggested that more time may be needed.
Even in Riley County's case, consolidation didn't happen overnight. The movement started in the late '60s with Don Everett, a former county attorney who got elected to the Legislature in 1968. Everett tried several times to push the issue, but because of technical problems in the bill, it never went to the voters until 1972.
It passed with 57 percent of the vote, despite every rural precinct voting against it and an opposition effort supported by the state sheriff's association. A group spent all of 1973 working out the details -- how would the beats work? Whose insurance package do you use? What will the uniforms look like? -- before inaugurating the new department on Jan. 1, 1974.
Johnson was assistant director then. From the start, he said, rural feelings had to be considered. The county beats were drawn up carefully and officers for those beats were handpicked, folks who knew about country life and its needs.
Something must have worked. Opponents forced the issue back onto the ballot in 1976. It passed again, this time with a 70 percent vote. And it didn't lose a single precinct.
Everyone who served in one of the old departments was offered a job in the new one, Johnson said. Almost everyone accepted.
"In the end, the only person who didn't come aboard was the undersheriff," he said. "He was just upset about it."
Today, day-to-day operations are run by the director while overall policy is set by a police board. Officially, the board sets its own budget without the approval of the city or county commissions. In practice, the seven-member board always includes at least three city commissioners and at least two county commissioners, so approval tends to be understood.
Eighty percent of the budget is borne by the city of Manhattan while the other 20 percent comes from the county as a whole. The budget is funded by property taxes.
The police director is appointed rather than elected. Ironically, Johnson said, that may ensure greater accountability.
"People like their elected officials," he said. "But the reality is, you can get rid of a police chief a lot faster than a sheriff."
It is expensive in the early years, Johnson said, especially if you want to be fair to your officers. Police and sheriff salaries have to be equalized, benefits have to be made level and equipment has to be standardized. But over the long run, he said, it is more efficient and there can be some savings in administration. The Riley County force today has a budget of $12 million to $13 million and about 180 sworn officers.
Some task force members asked whether it would be necessary to build one law-enforcement center to house the new department, as Riley County eventually did. Emporia City Attorney Blaise Plummer wasn't sure that was necessary, since the police department and sheriff's department sit less than a block from each other.
Task force vice-chair Julie Johnson was less sure.
"From a psychological standpoint, I would say the way Riley County did it -- to have a separate building for law enforcement to be in -- makes a lot more sense," she said. "Then it is a consolidated force. It's not using a building that's the city's and a building that's the county's."
Al Johnson said two buildings could work if the officers were divided by function instead of geography. For example, he said, all detectives could work out of one building and all patrol officers out of the other.
"You've presented a fairly positive impression of the consolidation process in Riley County," Julie Johnson said. "Do you have any specifics as to why it's a model that hasn't been more adopted?"
"I think for the most part, it's politics," Al Johnson said.
"One question I'm always asked is 'Will it work?'" he said. "If you want it to, it will. And if you don't want it to, you can undermine it. That depends on the politicians."
The next task force meeting will be 4 p.m. on July 26 in the jury assembly room at the Lyon County Courthouse.
ks_farmboy (anonymous) says...
i think this is a horrible idea. i believe it takes a lot more iniative to be a city patrolman than a county deputy. multiple things go on in the city at the same time, sometimes holding calls waiting for an officer to be freed up. the county might take two or three calls a night. it will take training to bring most deputies up to par to work within the city. there is not a need for multiple patrols in the county when nothing is going on most nights. all this does is take patrolman out of the city. if you are going to keep more patrolman in the city for calls and patrols than in the county, then why combine the two departments? this is asinine. if the county needs assistance, the city will go out and help, but ive not seen it the other way around hardly at all. the way work is done also will have to be changed. county deputies are there to be a "friend" and really do not enforce the law. (not many tickets are given out, more warnings than anything.) if that kind of operation was the same in the city, there would be an incline of traffic offenses and other petty crimes. i believe this is a horrible idea and should not be considered. i think there is a reason only one county in the state is consolidated. i currently live in a county of 180k residents within 11 "towns." there is a full-service sheriffs department, but there are still city cops in the bigger cities with more population. whats the point of combining when you will still have to focus on the more populated areas. aka. the city. who comes up with these ideas? they obviously have no clue how either department operates.
June 29, 2007 at 12:58 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
spectator (anonymous) says...
I agree that this is a ridiculous idea. If consolidation is such a grand concept, why is Riley County the one and only location in all of Kansas to make it work ? Don't give me that rubbish about "politics" either. If you don't believe politics is at the root of this right here, you are pretty well in the dark. A county in Kansas is mandated by state statute to fund a sheriff's department no matter the cost. Granted, it would be political suicide for any sheriff to make unreasonable requests, but the commissioners (aka politicians) want to hold ALL the purse strings. As for Mr Plummer 's comment that the two buildings are less than a block from each other, you still have two separate agencies. Thanks to a past city manager who did a lot of harm few people are aware of, and equally poor commissioners, the City can't fund a new facility and I don't feel it's fair for the County to foot the bill. As far as who goes where, deputies KNOW the county as well as city officers KNOW the city and the people in their respective areas. What deputy/officer is going to go where? Still separated I'd say; common sense demands that a deputy well educated about back roads and such would be the best choice to respond to a call in the far end of the county. It's a stupid idea and I hope someone with some say in this has the sense to say so loud and clear. I disagree with the comment about "iniative" (sic) to be a city policeman vs. a deputy (vs. a trooper vs. an ESU police officer.) If someone requests assistance, any agency, any officer-deputy- trooper-campus officer WILL respond as best as they are able. Been there, done that, seen it even more often. I also disagree that county officers are more of a friend - they do the same work as the city law enforcement people but, as you pointed out, their workload isn't as heavy. I feel I have a little insight into this matter - as you might have guessed, I did my time as a deputy and a city patrolman. Not all of my coworkers gave 100% all of the time, but it is and always has been, a tough job. I don't think we'd be doing the population of the city or the county or the individual law enforcement people themselves any favor if this consolidated force becomes a reality. How will seniority be handled? You have detectives and supervisors in each department - who is going to have to step down in rank AND pay? Would you volunteer for that? Who chooses the uniforms, leather, sidearms, etc? Did you know one badge costs approximately $70.00? How are the patrol units to be equipped? Has ANYONE thought about ANY of the nuts and bolts of making this work past the idea of "Let's consolidate. "?
July 1, 2007 at 10:27 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )