Grant enables formation of new police unit
The Community Policing Response Team, the newest unit of the Hot Springs Police Department, will be activated next week, Interim Police Chief Billy Hrvatin told the Civil Service Commission Wednesday.
The federal Community Oriented Policing Services grant the department won in 2021 enabled the formation of the five-officer unit. Two of the positions will be filled next week. The rest will be staffed when the grant-funded positions are filled, backfilling veteran officers who transfer to the new unit.
The $625,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant will pay 75% of five new officers’ salary and benefits for three years. The city will be responsible for fully funding the positions for at least one year after the grant ends.
Hrvatin said the new unit will have multiple roles.
“They’ll be working in high-crime areas,” he told the commission. “They’ll be assisting our (criminal investigation division) in investigations and surveillance and the narcotics unit, too. They’ll be going to community meetings, town hall meetings. I really want them to be out there to listen to the people and listen to their problems and be the unit that can respond to that.”
Hrvatin said the officers won’t be assigned to a specific geographic area.
“If somebody’s complaining about a particular location in a neighborhood where maybe narcotics are being dealt or there’s some sort of criminal activity going on, these are the guys who are going to have free rein to go out there and proactively police those things and not be tied to a zone and tied to just answering calls,” he said. “They’ll be a lot more fluid.”
They will also patrol Mountain View Heights, the 365 units the Hot Springs Housing Authority converted to Section 8 housing in 2018.
“That’s something that’s fallen by the wayside the last couple of years,” Hrvatin told the commission. “We used to have an officer assigned to the Housing Authority. We haven’t had that for a while. We’re going to make sure we’re giving them plenty of patrols and responding to their needs in a real timely manner.”
The $16.81 million 2023 police fund budget includes 115 uniformed positions. Hrvatin said six, including the grant-funded positions, are vacant. Five rookies are expected to conclude field training at the end of March, and two are at the Arkansas Law Enforcement Training Academy.
Hrvatin said applicants from last month’s eligibility list are undergoing background checks. He said a voice stress analysis, or lie detector test, is part of the screening.
Two women passed the department’s written and physical tests, but one chose not to complete the hiring process. Hrvatin said the other woman applicant is in the background check phase. The department has said few women have applied for uniformed positions in recent years. According to its 2022 annual summary, the department had five women among the 109 uniformed officers who served last year.
The state code allows civil service commissions to conduct tests on the first Monday in April and October or according to rules prescribed by the commission. The Hot Springs commission adopted a local rule last March that allows it to conduct tests and interviews when its eligible list of applicants expires.
Written and physical tests account for 40% of an applicant’s ranking on the eligibility list. A score of one to 25 the commission assigns after interviews accounts for 60%.
“Everybody who gets on the list doesn’t get hired,” Hrvatin said. “Some of them get lost in the background check because something comes out that disqualifies them. You’ll get through your list and you may still have positions open, so that’s why we did the (special testing rule).”