City board considers crime reduction strategies

Monthly reports the Hot Springs Police Department post on the city website include statistics that show how crime is trending in the city.

Moving those trends in a positive direction will require increasing public safety resources, one of the half-dozen goals the Hot Springs Board of Directors established last month at its 2022 goal setting/budget priorities work session.

The more than $14 million the board authorized for 2021 police funding included salaries and benefits for 110 uniformed positions, including the position the board authorized in June to enforce regulations on short-term residential rental businesses that took effect earlier this summer.

The city said given the difficulty the department has had filling its budgeted positions, adding more positions may not be feasible.

“We have lots of openings at the police department now,” City Attorney Brian Albright told the board last month. “We’re having a really difficult time filling those slots. I think the number of authorized personnel is sufficient right now.”

The department swore in 13 new officers in May. That same month, the board authorized the department to apply for a Department of Justice Community Oriented Policing Services grant. The city will know later this year if it will receive partial funding for the five new uniformed positions for which it applied.

The grant pays 75% of the new officers’ salary and benefits for three years, with the city paying the balance and full cost of equipping the officers. The city’s 25% match would be budgeted in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The grant requires the new officers to be retained for at least one year after the funding ends. The $58,239 cost to equip each officer, including providing them with a vehicle, would be accounted for in the 2022 police fund budget.

City Manager Bill Burrough told the board it will have increased the number of budgeted, sworn positions by six, including the STR officer it approved in May, if the city’s grant application is awarded in full. Filling the additional positions will be difficult, Burrough told the board.

“It’s kind of a revolving door,” he said. “It’s a tough time to be a police officer in America.”

Several directors asked if police salaries need to be raised. According to the city’s human resources department, $41,808 is the starting salary for an officer.

“Based on what I saw, (the salary) wasn’t enough to put your life at risk,” District 5 Director Karen Garcia told the board.

Last week, the city announced a $5,000 signing bonus for new officers. New hires will be eligible for the bonus after a probationary period.

Several directors said more funding should be allocated to the technology component of the violent crime reduction strategy the department unveiled last fall. Expanding the coverage area of the outdoor acoustical gunfire detection system should be a priority, they said.

The 2021 police budget the board authorized included $99,000 for a license to use ShotSpotter Inc.’s wide-area outdoor gunshot detection, location and forensic analysis service over a 2-square mile area of the city. The license has an annual renewal of $50,000 per square mile. Burrough told the board the 2022 police budget he will submit will include the cost of expanding the system’s footprint.

According to the department’s July report, the 79 shots fired calls the department reported in July were 39% higher than the previous July and 103% higher than July 2019. There were 408 shots fired calls through the first seven months of the year, compared to 443 through the first seven months of last year and 206 over that time in 2019.

Based on information officers entered into the department’s records management system, burglaries, thefts and vehicle thefts were up over the first seven months compared to the previous year. Vehicle theft was up 48%. Aggravated assault, robberies, breaking and entering, drug and narcotic offenses and homicides were down compared to last year.

Mayor Pat McCabe told the board a crime reduction strategy should include a youth component, such as the pickup basketball games between officers and youths that have become a regular occurrence at the Rev. James Donald Rice Pocket Park the city opened behind the police department in 2019.

“The officers will go play with the youth in the neighborhood,” he said. “With that type of programming, it isn’t a one-year goal. We can take the youth who are 6 and 8. Hopefully, by the time they’re 20, they’re focused in other areas.”