Anchorage

Anchorage Police Department projects budget deficit

The Anchorage Police Department is projecting a $3.1 million deficit for the end of 2014, largely a result of overtime costs stemming from reduced staffing levels, officials said.

To make up the gap, APD Chief Mark Mew is asking the Anchorage Assembly to support tapping the municipality's pool of reserve funds. Much of the cost overrun is in the overtime category, with staffing levels impacted by high attrition and a wave of retirements at the end of 2013, Mew said in an interview.

Two other factors compounded high overtime costs, Mew said: an unusually high volume of leave cash-outs, in part due to retirements, and a miscommunication with the city budget office about how many positions to leave unfilled for budgetary reasons.

"Some things break your way, some things break against you," Mew said. "This year everything broke against us. Nothing broke out our direction."

To his knowledge, Mew said, the last time the department ran such a large deficit was in 2002. He said APD typically ends the year under budget and helps boost the municipality's reserves.

"Generally we do pretty well in our budget," Mew said. "It's very unusual for the police department to find itself in this position."

Mew stressed the deficit is not a "pending catastrophe," but an internal adjustment based on predictions that ultimately fell short. APD will not be making layoffs or turning directly to taxpayers to come up with the funds, Mew said.

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The request to the Assembly would draw $2.9 million in overtime, $188,000 in leave cash-outs and $12,000 in legal arbitration from the police service area fund balance. That account currently holds more than $16 million, Mayor Dan Sullivan said in an interview.

Sullivan cautioned against linking reduced staffing exclusively to attrition. Other factors that impact overtime numbers include family and medical leave, he said. He also noted that his administration boosted the APD budget for the coming fiscal year.

The department's 2014 budget was set at about $96.3 million. But Mew said a deficit began looming early in the year amid predictions that the summer of 2014 would be the "bottom of the trench" for police staffing. The year before, the police department saw twice the normal amount of attrition. An incentive to retire by Jan. 4, 2014, led to a rush of departures in December, and an accompanying spike in leave cash-outs.

From Mew's target number of 375 sworn officers, there were just 321 in July, the lowest in almost a decade. To keep shift staffing at a "tolerable level," the department ran through its overtime budget at a faster rate than usual, Mew said.

The department in late October brought the number of sworn officers to 374, between one academy that recently graduated and another that is currently underway. Those recruits are not yet patrolling on their own, and are still paired with senior officers for training, Mew said.

Gerard Asselin, the treasurer of the Anchorage Police Department Employees Association, said the extra overtime costs are largely preventable through adequate staffing. He also noted that some overtime is not discretional and driven by the specific crime, which applies to officers with the homicide or special victims units.

Meanwhile, revenues are down for the year with fewer officers on the street to write tickets, Mew said.

He said his long-standing worries about staffing in 2014 did materialize.

"But I also think we're on the mend," Mew said.

Devin Kelly

Devin Kelly was an ADN staff reporter.

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