Bellefonte officers respond to story

The CDT recently ran an article that covered some issues regarding the Bellefonte Police Department, its budget and an ad hoc committee convened about that subject. The officers of the Bellefonte Police Association are dedicated to providing professional service to the community and are pleased the residents are being informed about the issues facing the borough and the police department.

Such reports are good for serving that purpose. As good as an article may be, some questions are sure to arise. In the interest of answering some of those questions, getting other facts and clarifications is important. This is especially true in the interest of transparency and getting a more complete and accurate picture. As such, the Bellefonte Police Association would like to provide some more of those facts and details.

Bellefonte was compared to Clearfield and Hollidaysburg boroughs due to their proximity and seeming similarity. Obviously neither of those boroughs are in Centre County. Consequently the median home prices and individual incomes are higher in Bellefonte. Research found the following median values: Clearfield income $29,166 and housing $76,854; Hollidaysburg income $49,644 and housing $137,699; and Bellefonte income $53,461 and housing $177,035.

Bellefonte also has a higher population than the other municipalities. Bellefonte also has a lower tax millage rate. Bellefonte’s taxes also haven’t been raised in several years prior to 2016. The police budget hasn’t been raised in at least three years prior to 2016.

The total budget number for the police department may be higher than the comparison boroughs’. However, there isn’t much difference between the towns as far as what percentage of the general fund budget is comprised by the police department budget. Research shows there being only a 6 percent difference. The same research indicated the general fund budget figures for Clearfield and Hollidaysburg was their total budget. In Bellefonte, the general fund budget is a smaller portion (a little more than a quarter) of the overall total municipal budget. This makes the Bellefonte Police Department budget a smaller portion of the total budget as compared to the other boroughs. This is with employing more dedicated professional full-time officers.

The number of full-time officers employed was central to the story. Bellefonte has two full-time positions that have their costs offset by 75 percent by the school district. Bellefonte has fewer officers employed now than it did at times in the 1970s. Bellefonte surely faces more and more serious issues to be addressed by the police department now and does so without any real increase in staffing. Our research showed that Clearfield actually has seven full-time officers and Hollidaysburg has eight full-time officers. Clearfield supplements its full-time staff with six part-time officers, and Hollidaysburg works with only one officer on duty on many shifts as a compromise to manpower needs. Both of these compromises were addressed by the ad hoc committee, and it was determined that this was an undesirable situation for Bellefonte.

The article touched on some issues with hiring part-time officers. Those being level of commitment, needing the same level of training and turnover. In that vein, there is a great deal of time, money and manpower that have to be invested in a part-time officer to get them to the same high standard and level of performance that we desire and the borough deserves. This is done just to end up losing the part-time officer to a neighboring department that can offer them the added security and benefits of a full-time position.

The article also talked about the possibility of changing the roles of the detective. The ad hoc committee found that having a detective position was the standard for most, if not all, departments of varying sizes within a 50-mile radius (farther was not checked). This includes at least one department with lower staffing levels and fewer hours of coverage than Bellefonte. Blair County enjoys having two county detectives. Centre County does not have county detectives. A chief from an almost entirely part-time department in a county with detectives related to one of our officers that he feels having a department detective is “imperative when possible.”

The ad hoc committee ultimately found that costs were generally similar to compared departments, and in many cases were controlled better by Bellefonte P.D. The consensus after the series of ad hoc committee meetings was that Bellefonte police should keep staffing and services as is and meet periodically to ensure that budget concerns are met for the good of the community.

As staffing and costs were addressed, some other interesting staffing figures about the boroughs came out in the ad hoc committee’s research. Clearfield borough offices are staffed by three people: a manager, a secretary/administrator and a codes enforcement officer. Hollidaysburg borough offices are staffed by five people in similar positions. Bellefonte borough offices are staffed by seven people for similar purposes at the time of this writing.

The officers of the Bellefonte Police Association hope that these facts help the community they serve be more informed as we continue to provide the best public safety and services possible.

This story was originally published January 21, 2016 at 8:10 PM with the headline "Bellefonte officers respond to story."