2019-12-20 Police Commission Regular Minutes

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Hawaii Police Commission Regular Session Minutes December 20, 2019 Page 3 February, and another in late summer. On the civilian side, they have 8 dispatcher vacancies. On December 7, they started a new class of 4 dispatchers. At the end of the month 4, dispatchers will retire, and they will have 4 more vacancies. They have a difficult time filling sworn vacancies. They do go to job fairs. They hada police cadet program, but now they are so short-staffed, that it's hard to do. They have hired people from the mainland, but oftentimes they move back to the mainland after 4-5 years because of family concerns. Vice Chair Bertsch asked about the ratio of applicants versus the number that pass. AC Thomas stated that this recruit class has 22 out of 117 applicants. The prior recruitment had 130 applicants. The numbers drop as they go through tests. Commissioner St. Ambrogio stated that as a retired police officer, she stepped into the volunteer end. Perhaps, retiring officers could also do this. AC Thomas stated that some of the retired officers are in their reserve program. Commissioner Schutte asked if problems with the Spillman System have been resolved. AC Thomas stated that they resolve some issues, but then other issues come out. Subsequently, another vendor bought out Spillman. They need to have better coordination with the vendor. There have been improvements, but better improvements need to be made. • Finance Report: AC Thomas reported that they are over their budget by $3 million which is attributed to overtime due to the TMT issue. The County does not get money from traffic citations; the State gets it all. Commendations of Sworn and Civilian Employees: Chief Ferreira reported that they received 7 commendations involving 30 personnel since the last meeting. Other Department Activities: Chief Ferreira reported that he attended the CALEA Conference, and they received accreditation. They have a cadet program, but have problems doing it along with the recruit program. They also have resource officers in schools. They have a reserve officer program where officers have to commit to 20 hours a week. Reserve officers are required to do the same things that on -duty officers do. Regarding Josephine Tanimoto's testimony, a complaint was filed on her behalf. It is still pending, so a report is not complete. He did explain this to her, and told her she could file a complaint with them or the commission. Regarding Mr. Tamashiro's testimony, they did get the paperwork. In response to Commissioner St. Ambrogio's inquiry about bodycams, Chief Ferreira stated that they have requested a test and evaluation program from vendors. They did a test in 2014, but technology has changed, and their IT Specialist who was