Taxpayers may soon have to pay deputies to do constables’ work
Pennsylvania’s state constable system is imperiled by a lack of funding for firearms training and certification.
The Commonwealth Constables Association, the largest organization representing many of the 1,674 constables registered with the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD), issued a statement last week complaining that funding for their firearms training has been eliminated.
“There is a grave concern facing PA constables — the elimination of their annual firearms training,” said John-Walter E. Weiser, constable association president.
However, state Rep. Thomas R. Caltagirone, a Reading Democrat and ranking minority member of the state house Judiciary Committee, said the PCCD
funding crunch is far worse than the constables let on.
“We’re coming up on a crisis,” Caltagirone said.
Joshua Z. Stouch, constable for Douglass Township, Montgomery County, and legislative director of the constables association, said constables need firearms training to protect themselves, fellow officers and the public.
Stouch pointed to a June 28 incident in which a defendant in a district judge’s court in Delaware County tried to grab a police officer’s gun and escape. The officer tackled the prisoner. A constable shot the prisoner with a Taser and when that didn’t stop the offender, shot and killed him with his service pistol.
“The Delaware County case ended the way it did because we had firearms training, and we’re not going to be getting that any more,” Stouch said.
The training cuts are the PCCD’s response to declining revenues. In 1994 the Legislature approved a $5 fee from every warrant served by a constable. Those funds go to constable training.
“The simple solution would be to raise that $5 fee to bring in enough revenue to fund training,” Stouch said. “But, I’m told no legislator wants to put their name on any fee increase because it sounds too much like a tax increase.”
As a result, due to declining revenues and increases in training costs over the years, the PCCD has cut the firearms training by 75%, said Kirsten Kenyon, director of the PCCD’s Office of Research, Evaluation and Strategic Policy Development.
“Since firearms training is the largest part of the board’s training budget, the board decided to eliminate the 16 hours of continuing education training with the expectation that constables would come into recertification prepared to qualify,” Kenyon said.
She said constables are now only required to sign up for the 4-hour qualification session and pass the written and shooting test to be certified.
Kenyon and Stouch said they were confident the PCCD board would find a
way to not let certifications lapse for constables. But they offered no foundation for that claim.
Caltagirone said his understanding is that funding for constable training will run out by the end of this year, which means constables couldn’t get firearms certification and they can’t work without that certification.
State Rep. Barry Jozwiak, a Bern Township Republican and a fellow member of the state house Judiciary Committee, said many committee members feel the constable system should be phased out through attrition and their duties assumed by county sheriff departments.
“I have a bill that would eliminate them (constable system),” said Jozwiak, a former Berks sheriff. “They’re a vestige of a bygone era that has no place in the 21st century.”
“For that reason it should be abolished altogether, and we will be offering legislation to achieve that end,” Jozwiak said. “The general
consensus is they’re running out of money.
“This year I think there are more than 100 constables up for training and they’re only having one class for 25 constables. Without the training they can’t be certified and without certification they can’t work for the courts.”
At that point constable work, mainly with the magisterial district courts, would fall to the county sheriff departments. Jozwiak said legislation he is proposing would eliminate constable positions through attrition.
“That way we wouldn’t be dumping the constable work in the laps of the various county sheriffs all at once,” he said.
Berks Sheriff Eric J. Weaknecht said he has done an analysis of funding generated by constable fees and the cost of having deputies do that work.
“The funding would cover salaries, benefits, equipment and other costs for maybe three to four deputies,” Weaknecht said. “We could
not do the work the constables do with that number of people.”
At that point, funding to hire deputies to serve warrants, transport prisoners and provide security for the county’s lower courts would become the responsibility of the county commissioners.
“That’s not good news,” said Commissioner Chairman Christian Y. Leinbach
“The idea that the county could ever save money by eliminating constables and putting that work on the sheriffs is ludicrous,” Leinbach said. “The (constables) don’t get health care, they buy their own weapons and uniforms, their own cars, they rely on the warrant fee schedule (for payment).”
Leinbach said like the county 9-1-1 fee, funding of Berks Heim and other state funding programs, the Legislature never ties fees to the cost of living.
“The county taxpayers are going to get stuck with funding something the state should be taking care of,” Leinbach said.