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Date: 6/1/2021
NORTHAMPTON – Across two days, the Northampton City Council conducted hearings for the city’s proposed $121.7 million budget and spoke to department heads from the Health Department, the Public Schools, the Fire Department, Central Services, the Department of Public Works, and the Police Department.
Of significant interest was the discussion regarding the police budget, which was proposed at $6.2 million, representing a $178,633 increase over the previous fiscal year.
The proposal comes as some members of the community have called upon the city to significantly defund the department.
During the Northampton Police Department (NPD) budget hearing, Police Chief Jodi Kasper told the council there were three budget changes from the previous year.
“This year’s proposed police budget includes three changes. The first is an increase in the Personnel Services Budget as a result of negotiated salary increases for all employees. The second is a slight increase for the part-time animal control officer position. The third change involves moving $15,000 from training overtime and I moved $10,216 from court overtime to the special police officer line,” she said.
Kasper added the special police officers are eight officers who fill in when needed.
One of the recommendations from the Northampton Policing Review Commission (NPRC) was to set up a department of community care, and the budget includes $423,955 to establish the department. Ward 6 Councilor Marianne LaBarge asked Kasper to give her thoughts on the new department.
“Generally speaking, I would love to have, and have said I fully, fully, support clinicians working for the city or in a way they can handle calls. To me it makes sense to have them out of the Police Department because they are going to be on radio frequencies and know our staff, and that is the model I have seen across the country,” she said.
Kasper added she was in favor of the department being a direct part of the Police Department but said she understood that it could be separate.
“I am looking at the successful models across the country and what I am seeing are clinical responders that are paired with the police department. They do not have to be in police cars with officers, they can be their own responders but sit at our shift changes, that creates much easier information flow,” she said. “I think it is a great idea and I would love to have clinicians responding yesterday out of the police department, but I understand the city may go in a different direction.”
Another recommendation of the commission was to do a needs assessment of the department, which Kasper said she was in favor of.
“One of the very clear directives from the NPRC was having a better understanding of what we need for police and the right number. We have our opinion being responders and looking at our call volume, but we welcome outside input, looking at that from folks who understand police response and what is needed on calls,” she said.
Ward 7 Councilor Rachel Maiore clarified the department of community care would be separate from the NPD.
“The idea of a department of community care is actually precisely to offer different policies and practices. I understand what you are saying about communication and I am all for communication, but the idea would be it would approach issues and crises differently,” she said.
While some residents are calling for a 50 percent budget cut for the Police Department, including those that participated in a standout at City Hall before the May 25 budget hearings, Councilors Rick Nash, Michael Quinlan, Labarge, and William Dwight all said they were in favor of approving the budget as proposed.
While the budget as proposed does not include the cut, Ward 5 Councilor Alex Jarrett asked if it would be easier if the department’s budget would be cut over several years.
“If we were going to cut our staff, even if you were going to set up the department of community care that picked up all these calls, I would strongly advocate against cutting because we still have to respond to serious calls. If we knew a couple of years out what we would get to, we would rather lose staff through attrition, it provides employment stability for new people coming into the job,” she said.
With the COVID-19 pandemic slowly coming to an end, Kasper said the department is already facing staffing problems that will get worse over the summer as more businesses open.
“I think the best metric we have is calls we cannot go on, and that is what is coming this summer. We were very lucky in 2020 and 2021 that everything has been closed. Over the past two weekends we have been extremely busy, and we do not have enough officers to handle the calls,” she said.