2020-12-18 Police Commission Regular Minutes

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Hawaii Police Commission Regular Session Minutes December 18, 2020 Page 2 Traffic Report: Major Basque reported that fiscal year to date, they had 316 traffic crashes, 5 traffic fatalities, 3 DUI Fatalities, and 477 DUI arrests. For the month of November, 5,518 citations were issued: 3,987 moving/regulatory, 342 seatbelt, 28 child restraint, and 1,161 speeding. • Personnel Report: Major Jelsma reported that through November 30, they had 14 in the 92nd recruit class and 20 in the 93rd recruit class, which them with 46 vacancies. As of November 30, 90.5% sworn positions were filled and 85.2% civilian positions filled. The 91St recruit class has 14 recruits in solo assignments until March 15, 2021. The 92nd recruit class had 21 recruits go solo on December 17. For their 94th recruit class, 456 applied, 275 took the written exam, 159 passed. After the agility exam, withdrawals, no shows, and no follow-ups, they now have 75 in their recruitment pool. They have 13 radio dispatcher vacancies. • Finance Report, including HPD's 2020-21 Budget: Major Jelsma reported as of 11/30/20, their overall targeted expenditures was 44.27%; actual 42.69%. Targeted S & W expenditure was 45.83%; actual 44.46%. Their approved FY 20-21 budget is $72,091,319 which includes a 10% overall reduction. They submitted a FY 21-22 budget of $71,459,725 which includes a 5% overall reduction. In response to questions, Major Jelsma stated that they are able to use vacancy funds to pay overtime. With regards to dispatchers, they do job familiarization interviews. They are trying to start a new dispatcher class as soon as possible. Chief Ferreira stated that he's hoping the new dispatcher center will help with retention. The job is very difficult, and that's why they do the realistic job interview where they bring the applicants into the dispatch center. This is where they lose a lot of applicants. He believes their salary is low, and it should be repriced. Salary is typically the same across the state and nation. Major Jelsma stated that police officers are on probation for 18 months. Anything over 8 hours is overtime. They are only allowed to work 12 hours. Chief Ferreira stated that a lot of the overtime is Covid related. Overtime in the police department is a fact of life. Investigations will take on overtime. If it is at the end of the shift, they have to finish up the investigation. Any natural disaster will take up overtime. They don't budget for disasters, because they don't know what will happen, so they go by averages. They had officers working at the airports on overtime due to Covid. Officers were monitoring the beaches, parks, and quarantine violators. They were allowed to use Covid funds for overtime and not regular on - duty funds. Officers are also being assigned to foodbank distributions.