2015-02-20 Police Commission Regular Minutes

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Hawai'i Police Commission Regular Session Minutes February 20, 2015 Page 2 COMMUNICATIONS • Correspondence 15-02, invitation from the Honolulu Police Commission to the 2015 State of Hawai'i Police Commissioners' Conference April 16-17, 2015. • Correspondence 15-03, from the Honolulu Police Commission informing of bills before the State Legislature relating to police commissions. Commissioner Victorine motioned to discuss the communications after the Chief s report. Commissioner Morioka seconded, and it carded unanimously. POLICE CHIEF'S REPORT ON DEPARTMENTAL ACTIVITIES • Crime report: Assistant Chief Tavares reported that there were 5,597 serious crimes in Areas I and 11. The Criminal Investigation Units investigated 1,197 of these cases. There were no crime trends in any of the districts. There was a decrease in auto thefts which they attribute to the arrest of individuals. • Traffic report: Major Mitchell Kanehailua reported that in the month of January, 5,106 citations were issued: 3,191 moving/regulatory, 413 seatbelt, 77 child restraint, and 1,425 for speeding. Ka'u had a fatality, but there were no trends. Personnel report: Deputy Chief Ferreira reported having 30 sworn vacancies. The recruit class will be given solo assignments, and that will bring the vacancy down to 19. They are going through a new recruitment process and are looking at hiring a minimum of 20 positions. They have 34 civilian vacancies. Finance report: Deputy Chief Ferreira stated that they were able to get some additional funds from the County for overtime due to the lava flow. When they budget for overtime, they are conservative. Any natural disaster, emergency, or homicides could send them over the top. They budget for what they anticipate can happen, and they depend on the County to fund them in the event there is a natural disaster or unexplained event. County Finance could move monies around from different County contingency funds, but first they are asked if they can move funds from their own department. Normally, they do not take from the training and equipment account for overtime and travel. Vice Chair Bertsch stated that one of the primary responsibilities of the commission is to ensure that the police department has a substantial amount of operating funds in order to complete its mission without public service suffering. The commission stands by to support them in any way possible. Deputy Chief Ferreira stated that the credit should go to their line staff, personnel in the field, and the commanders who monitor daily, weekly, and monthly, looking at ways they can cut, looking at ways they can do more with less. They were told to do a status quo budget. He explained the County's budget process. Vice Chair Bertsch stated that the commission only