A year on the beat
Oates marks first anniversary as city’s top cop
Police Chief Thomas F. Oates III, who marked a year at the helm of the Woonsocket Police Department this week, says he's impressed by the energy and compassion of the front-line police officers who staff the department and he's doing everything he can to give them the tools they need to do their jobs more effectively.
Often using drug forfeiture money, Oates has quietly begun modernizing the fleet of cruisers and unmarked vehicles, acquired new software that allows ranking officers to keep better track of crimes in their territories and is beefing up the arsenal with new Tasers and, for the first time, patrol rifles. Until now, the police have only had shotguns at their disposal – a glaring omission the age of the seemingly ever-present active shooter.
“Everybody thinks it's not going to happen in their backyard,” says Oates. “That's not the case. What we're seeing is that these situations are happening in what seem like the least likely places, rural areas and small cities.”
But the 43-year police veteran and former deputy chief of the Providence Police Department says there's one tool the local force needs that it doesn't have – a deputy chief. He asked for one, at a total cost of about $129,000 a year, including benefits, as part of his roughly $9 million budget to run the police force. The position, however, was one of several personnel elisions the City Council made to Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt's spending plan before the panel approved a $138 million citywide budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.
Oates says he would have never asked for a deputy chief if he didn't see an urgent need for one.
The central issue he is attempting to address is the managerial independence of the police department from the interests of International Brotherhood of Police Officers. Among the 95 authorized law enforcement positions (only 87 are currently filled) of the WPD, all are members of the union except for himself, according to Oates.
Oates says his three highestranking officers, all captains who are sometimes referred to as the commanders of their respective divisions, are “very management oriented.” But the existing configuration of the leadership allows them to make decisions on personnel issues that put them in a potential conflict.
The chief says he is particularly concerned about this because he believes one of the most pressing needs of the department is a restructuring that involves the redeployment of officers holding rank above patrolman. In some divisions, he says, the department is too top-heavy with ranking officers, while there aren't enough in others.
“I believe some of the ranking officers within the department should be moved around in differ- ent ways,” said Oates.
It is inevitable that the situation will be addressed in collective bargaining, said Oates, in which case a deputy chief, who isn't a member of the union, could become critical in ironing out a contract that best serves the inter
ests of the department – and the city.
“I want a person independent, out of the union, that I can rely on as a confidante,” the chief said. “Having another set of eyes, non-union, geared toward management, is good for the department and the city.”
A deputy chief would also serve as his co-pilot in running day-to-day operations, and be in a position to step up as acting chief as scheduling requires.
Oates said he has already addressed some challenges associated with assigning ranking officers, but he's had to do an end-run around the collective bargaining agreement to do it – and it's costing more than it should.
Shortly after reporting for the chief's job, last Aug. 1, it was apparent that there was often only one ranking officer, either a lieutenant or a sergeant, in charge of each shift. That's not the most ideal supervisory control, Oates says – there should never be just one ranking officer on duty on any shift.
But the deficit didn't open up because there are an insufficient number of ranking officers. Basically, the current staff has enough seniority to warrant the maximum number of vacation days per year – 30 – to make scheduling two ranking officers for every shift impossible. Do the math, he suggests, and you'll quickly come to the conclusion that there are 270 shifts per year where the only way to get two ranking officers on duty per shift is to pay them overtime to do it.
Which is exactly what he's been doing. Ultimately, says Oates, he'd prefer to address the problem in collective bargaining, because he can't simply assign ranking officers to work outside their normal shifts now without running afoul of the agreement, which expires in 2019.
The mayor gives Oates high marks for his accomplishments during the short period of time he's been on the job and says she's deeply disappointed that his pitch for a deputy chief fell on deaf ears during the budget deliberations.
“He and Public Safety Director Eugene Jalette have made a good deal of progress in the last year,” she said. “They know what they're doing, and I think they knew what they were doing when they asked for a deputy chief.”
The mayor said one of the most unfortunate aspects of the cut was that Oates was never given a fair opportunity to make his case for the deputy chief's position. He only found out that the council intended to eliminate the position moments before the vote.
“He did get blindsided,” the mayor said.
Similar cuts were made across a number of departments. Among other things, the mayor was denied an economic development director and a public relations coordinator. She says the cuts were not well thought-out because they've left the city poorly positioned to take advantage of opportunities to apply for grants and chase down other funding sources.
“We have actually lost opportunities,” the mayor says. “There isn't the staff to track it down.”
Oates' call for a deputy chief's position runs counter to another strain of thought in city government, namely, that a comprehensive study of the city's public safety needs should be done before tweaking the personnel structure of the police force too much. But Oates is dismissive of the idea, saying he doesn't need an outside consultant to identify the needs of the department in a way that’s affordable – and therefore achievable.
“If they do a study and it say we should have 102 police officers instead of 95, are they going to follow it?” Probably not, says Oates. During the budget deliberations, councilors invited the to resurrect his request for a deputy chief later in the year, suggesting they'd be open to revisiting the idea. Oates politely sidestepped the question of whether he intends to do so anytime soon, but he says he wouldn't have asked for the position if he didn't need it.
“Everything I put in the budget I wanted because I really needed it and I could justify it,” he said. “When I ask for things I'm very conscious of that.”