Response provided by Linda Spacek, Director of Human Resource & Chase Stapp, Director of Public Safety:
What is the logic behind asking for 12 hours shifts? Is there any research to suggest this is affecting the resiliency of our officers? The police department implemented 12-hour shifts many years ago. As I recall, the main interest for 12-hour shifts was a quality of life issue. When the department used 10-hour shifts, officers were assigned to fixed days off. Officers with lesser seniority would often be assigned to days off in the middle of the week and therefore worked every weekend when most of their families were off. The 12-hour shift rotation allows for all officers to have a 3-day weekend every other weekend.
Please elaborate on the "Chief's Pick" process. Have any of these gone on to be "bad cops"? The Chief’s pick process allows the department to give officers with qualifying prior experience preference over non-experienced applicants as well as to ‘reach down’ on the list for female or minority candidates. These applicants must still pass the same rigorous background check as all other applicants. This background includes a thorough review of their personnel files held by all previous employers. This process cuts down considerably on the amount of time and money it takes to fully train new applicants. It also provides the benefit of giving the department the ability to evaluate how they have performed in an actual law enforcement role with one or more prior employers. I am not aware of any prior chief’s pick applicants being terminated from employment after hiring on here.
What would be the effect of raising the minimum passing score to 80 points? Are most people barely passing at the margin? There are two places where a minimum passing score is at play in the police department systems – during the hiring process and during promotion. Historically, we lose greater than 30% of our applicants at the written test phase of hiring even with the minimum score set at 70%. In addition to losing an even higher number of potentially viable candidates, one potential impact of raising the score to 80% would be a disparate impact on one or more protected groups. In terms of the promotional testing, it is important to note that the written test is only one part of the overall promotion process and accounts for 50% of the overall score in the ranks of Corporal and Sergeant. The assessment center accounts for the remaining 50%. The assessment center accounts for 60% of the score for personnel seeking to promote to the rank of Commander with the written test representing 40% of the score.
What would be the effect of removing an Officer's ability to use vacation to cancel out their suspensions? How many of these officers are going on the receive promotions? Did Sargent Ryan Hartman advance using similar measures to maintain their continuity of service, despite community complaints? The most immediate impact would be an increase in the number of arbitrations requested by officers being suspended. Arbitrations are expensive and delay the disciplinary process, so an increase in these processes for relatively minor suspensions would not be desirable. The arbitrator may also return the indefinitely suspended officer back to work. Sergeant Hartman received no disciplinary suspensions prior to being promoted to the rank of Sergeant. He received one 40-hour suspension after being promoted to the rank of Sergeant.
For lateral entry, do we consider the same issues of using their leave in lieu suspension to prove continuous employment? Applicants being considered for the lateral entry program undergo a full and thorough background investigation that includes a complete review of the personnel files from prior employers. Any suspension regardless of how it was served or administered is considered as one of many factors in the decision of whether or not to hire that applicant.
Could the role of the Civil Service Commission be expanded to review every instance of use of force? No. Chapter 143 of the Texas Local Government Code discusses the Commission and identifies its purpose as the oversight of all matters relating to the enforcement and affect of Chapter 143 in San Marcos. They adopt rules that agency heads use to ensure they are correctly administering discipline, conducting hiring and managing promotions. If an employee appeals to the Commission on the basis that one or more Commission rules were not followed correctly, they may conduct investigations and hearings into that complaint. It would be a conflict of interest for the Commission to review all uses of force and then later be asked to potentially preside over a hearing to determine whether a Chief followed the Commission rules when administering discipline about one of those use of force incidents. It is also important to note that all use of force instances within the police department currently undergo multiple levels of review and scrutiny. These are supervisory review, the Event Review Board (ERB) and in some cases an Internal Affairs review.
How often are "part time officers" as identified in section 3G utilized and what is the impact on our budget? The department currently employs four part-time officers. Three of them are retired SMPD Officers. One of the officers provides security at City Council meetings. One of them assists the department with community outreach. The other two augment the department’s in-house training efforts. The current budget impact of the part-time officer program is $20,000 annually.
What is the current residency incentive? The residency incentive mentioned in article 6 of the Police Department agreement is subject to appropriations. In response to the impact that COVID has had on projected City revenues, the City Council removed funding for the program in May of 2020. Commitments that were in place were honored. The Council could always vote to reinstate this funding. The incentive was built around a $5,000 forgivable loan that could be used for down payment funding for the purchase of a home. A goal of the program was to have police officers and patrol cars in neighborhoods.
Rule of three should consider if officers used time off in lieu of suspension. Suspensions served by the forfeiture of accrued leave time are still considered valid suspensions and are applicable to the Rule of Three process if they are suspensions of more than three days.
The items listed below are concepts that either deviate from Chapter 143 requirements or deviate from established police department policy.
Dispute resolution should outline that former police officers will not be considered as appropriate moderators/arbiters.
Under rights of officers we should:
Section 3 B remove their ability to review footage
Section 3 C dissallow the sharing of documents with the association unless they are selected to serve as their representation
section 4 Broaden the publics' access to police records and discipline
section 7 alternative discipline agreement history and relevance to Hartman, biden bus, etc? Pending litigation.
