2001-02-16 Police Commission Minutes

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February 16, 2001 Regular Session Minutes Page 3 process which is normally the interview process. They always try to maintain a current eligibility list because there have been times in the past when the list was exhausted. The chief is the appointing authority, and he can choose any one of the five. Assistant Chief Mahuna stated that when they receive the five names, they don't know the ranking. They only know that they are the top five, and they don't know who the others are. Chief Correa stated that they have the right to deny all five, but they need to have justification that will substantially standup in a civil service hearing. Commissioner Williams stated that they also must have sound justification for the person they pick. He believes that the public needs to learn how this process works. Civil Service is the one that makes it work. Chief Correa stated that there are a lot of checks and balances. Commissioner Moe stated that the recent past has taught them that if the public understands the process in detail and is informed about it, this issue will be dealt with a lot better and more effectively. Commissioner Williams stated that on many occasions they may get a high- scoring person, in theory, who may not be the best guy to get the job. Sometimes the person who's trained in the field has better field expertise, may be the best qualified individual, may not have passed the test in quite the same manner. Chief Correa stated that depending on the rank, it's the type of experience one has acquired, especially higher up in administration. In response to Vice Chair Manago's inquiry into whether there were qualified applicants for the deputy chief's position or people he had in mind, Chief Correa stated that there are qualified people and he has members of the department in mind. Because it is an appointed position, it is not necessary that he open it up for applications. However, there has to be a desire to be the deputy. All the majors and assistant chiefs are paid substantially higher than the deputy and some are paid higher than the chief. He is working with Civil Service and the Mayor to have someone take the position without a reduction in pay. He hopes the salary commission meets as soon as possible because they are the ones to make the adjustment. He has no time frame for hiring a deputy but would like to do it as soon as possible Finance: Business Manager Maesato presented a report which is attached. He distributed copies of their program based budget. He stated that the department's budget is shrinking due to inflation and collective bargaining increases. Their major cost is overtime pay. Chief Correa reported that holiday pay is included in overtime. Officers must work 24 hours /7 days /week. They don't have control over contractual pay. The only area that they could minimize cost of overtime would be on shortage of manpower. If they had additional personnel, they would not be required to holdover or call back personnel. In actuality, the more individuals they put out there, the better the law enforcement efforts would be, and they would generate more cases for on -duty things which would have an impact on working overtime and going to court. Sick leave and workman's comp has an impact on manpower shortage, but they don't have control over people being sick or injured. Vice Chair Manago informed that Kona now runs manpower shifts of 8 -8 -7. In the first six months, they already have a little over their full year's allocation in overtime, and that's just to maintain the 8 -8 -7. If they had more officers it would cut a lot of this overtime out. They've done studies in Kona and found