Jacksonville City Council panel cuts police budget

[Lunican]

Jacksonville City Council panel cuts police budget
Sheriff announces dozens of layoffs

A popular program that’s been credited with improving Jacksonville police response times has become a budget casualty, Sheriff John Rutherford said Thursday.

The 92 community service officers in bright yellow uniforms will be laid off effective Oct. 1 as part of the sheriff’s plan for cutting his budget by 3 percent, as required by the City Council Finance Commitee.

During Thursday’s budget hearing, Rutherford asked the committee to exempt his department from the cuts, saying the loss of $8.3 million would force him to resort to layoffs.

Full Article:
http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-09-03/story/jacksonville_city_council_panel_cuts_police_budget

[callahan4life]

It is more than dozens. JSO will be laying off the 92 CSO’s,  will not use the newly awarded federal money to hire 50 new officers, will lay off the 50 most recently hired officers, will also will be eliminating the department’s mounted unit and laying off those employees, as well as a parks officer and one public information officer and will eliminate $19,000 that the department pays to keep its accreditation. This WILL cause crimes such as murder and robbery to rise.

[fsu813]

yeah...but, but, but.....we would have had to pay a few more dollars a month in taxes!!!!

[rvrsdediva]

Not the mounted unit!!!! I used to love when every once in a while you'd see them in Riverside.  On a serious note this seems...excessive.

[Ocklawaha]

Oklahoma, mounted patrols instructers school. Fort Reno, west of OKC was the last US mounted Cavalry base, today OK is home to the master academy for these services.

Mounted units have a huge advantage in large crowd conditions over foot or bike patrols. Horses instinctively WILL NOT stop a walk, trot, and run, right through the middle of a huge crowd. This is why they were effective for century's in warfare, and still are to some commando units.

So a guy shows up at the 4Th of July festival, in the center of the Landing he stabs a couple of obviously well healed older women, and vanishes with their purses. In the confusion he is making time out of the crowd, and foot patrol is just getting the story. Word goes out to all units. Bike patrol is on the riverwalk, talking to the horse patrol, behind the TU Center. Guess who will catch this bastard in that crowd? WE NEED MOUNTED PATROL in crowd control situations.

OCKLAWAHA

[tufsu1]

yeah...but, but, but.....we would have had to pay a few more dollars a month in taxes!!!!

exactly....and clearly we can't ask taxpayers to do that in such a tough economy...so instead we'll lay off people who, coincidentally, are local taxpayers....wow, this is a sure-fire fix!

[reednavy]

Of course, Nelson Cuba says no way to a small cut to pay.

[NotNow]

3% isn't small to me.  Also, Fire & Police have taken less than cost of living raises for the last five or six years when the City said they were broke then.  The City failed to fund our pension for a few years because they "needed the money elsewhere".  Now, the City wants us to take a pay cut because they are broke again.  They want to cut our "excessive" pension (which is much less lucrative than theirs) which could sure use the money they withheld years ago (could we get that with interest please?).  Over and over I see folks criticize the JSO on here.  All we ask is that you look at the other comparable agencies in the State.  Compare our compensation and pension with Orlando/Orange County and Tampa/Hillsboro County.   Compare us with Miami/Dade County.   Compare  Officers per capita as well.  Do that, then tell us who is being unreasonable here?

[callahan4life]

........ Also, Fire & Police have taken less than cost of living raises for the last five or six years when the City said they were broke then.  ........

I have to correct you NotNow.....We have taken less than the cost of living raises for more than 20 years.

[JeffreyS]

The cities long term view that investments in quality of life should be ignored become catastrophic when times are tough.  We must have low taxes and keep all spending low then in tough times your budget has no room to cut.  You can't say to the police we need a little help now because you have been crying wolf to them for twenty years.  As crime goes up you will see more of an exodus to the outlying counties by young families. All the tax money you save by cutting the quality of life in Duval will be eclipsed by the loss of tax revenue which will be now based in St. Johns and Clay.

[CrysG]

What I think is interesting is that over at the Mayor's office you have admin aids making $175,008(which is more than the mayor makes) a year.

I think there needs to be an across the board cut not just with JSO. I don't think it's smart to cut the JSO budget when we are the murder capital of the state.

Beside I don't want your Duval crime rolling into Clay. 

[fsujax]

Save the mounted patrol! I love seeing them around town.

[NotNow]

Seems like there might be a humanitarian reason to use tax dollars there, Notnow.

Too bad you don't believe in doing it.

What are you trying to say, StephenDare!?  Just try saying it plainly.

This has nothing to do with a "humanitarian" gesture.  It is about being a responsible employer. These city employees are being forced to shoulder the burden of a problem caused largely because of the same political entities that is calling for the cuts.

Now tell me what the "smart", "intellectual", "hip" unemployed sector view of the subject is.  Feel free to call me names and label city employees with whatever birther , tenther label you can come up with.  Look on trashy websites and find a really controversial cut & paste to "prove" your point.  That should be easy with Police Officers.  Endow us all with your opinion from whatever coffee shop you are haunting today.

[heights unknown]

Well, so much for a decrease in crime around the city.

Heights Unknown

[Deuce]

My two cents: they should just raise the damn taxes. This was just stupid of the city council. Now they're cutting officers at a time when we need them the most. Our crime rates were finally beginning to get better. And we're going to loose the fed gift of 50 more. My opinion is you can never have too many officers on the streets. Think of the impact that just a few more officers dedicated to downtown could have. They would be able to catch a lot more people in the act of public drinking, urination, loitering, etc. and help clean up our downtown.

As for trying to cut salaries through the Unions, good effing luck. 9 months for negotiations, hardly. JEA could take several years and by then the economy could be completely turned around and on the rise.

As for paying more in taxes, I don't know about everyone else on here, but when I got my proposed tax notice from the city, I was paying less in taxes even with the mayor's proposed increase because the assessment on my property has gone down (a silver lining if you will). And when it does start to rise again, it will be limited by the Save Our Homes so I won't be paying as much as I did when I bought the place 4 years ago. I calculated and I could be living in my home 7-8 years after purchase and still be paying the same amount in taxes. Um, that sounds pretty good to me!