# Level of police service will drop - Prop. 2½



## girlcop21 (Jul 20, 2004)

*Level of police service will drop if override fails*

var isoPubDate = 'July 24, 2007' By Curt Brown
Standard-Times staff writer
July 24, 2007 6:00 AM

DARTMOUTH, MA - Facing a $103,000 cut if the town's $8.46 million override fails at the polls July 31, Police Chief Mark Pacheco said he will have no choice but to cut staff.

The chief said he will have to cut 2 percent or $103,000 from the Police Department's $5.1 million budget that Town Meeting approved if the Proposition 2½ override fails.

The 2 percent cut will reduce his fiscal 2008 budget to just over $5 million. He said he requested a budget of $5.3 million for fiscal 2008.

"The only other place I can cut is staffing," he said. "My expenses are bare bones. With understaffing, you run the risk of overtime."

But he said his front-line officers are a priority and he does not want to cut any of them.

"I can't afford to lose an officer," he said.

There are 53 full-time officers and the chief expects the ranks to climb to 58 when five recruits graduate from the training academy in late August. However, they will not be able to work on the road alone until late November when they finish their field training.

Of the 58 officers, 39 will be assigned to the patrol division, the chief said.
He said the department is down from 64 sworn officers in 2003, which was the highest in its history. The national average is 2.3 to 2.4 officers for every 1,000 of population, which would mean a police force of 76 officers for Dartmouth, he said.

The chief said he needs every officer he has to properly patrol Dartmouth's 218 miles of roadway and 64 square miles, which makes the community the fourth largest in the state.

"We're not the small bedroom town anymore," he said.

Beyond its sprawling geography, Dartmouth has 13,000 summer residents and a college population that is nearly 10,000 when UMass Dartmouth is in session, according to Chief Pacheco.

Chief Pacheco said he will have to make changes in other areas to keep all his officers. He is considering implementing a four-day work week for the clerical staff or his administrative staff (the chief and two captains with a corresponding loss of pay). He is also contemplating a layoff within the clerical staff.

Chief Pacheco said he has already lost four crossing guards; has not replaced two detectives; recalled a drug investigator from the Bristol County Drug Task Force; eliminated a part-time dispatcher; did not fill a clerical position, and either did away with or terminated a crime prevention officer, a school resource officer, a DARE officer, an officer dedicated to domestic violence cases only, an administrative lieutenant and a training officer.

He said the purchase of four new cruisers, 60 new portable radios and a mobile data upgrade for the department's laptop computers in the cruisers is dependent upon passage of the override.

He said from 1999 to 2007 the department's budget, including overtime, increased an average of 3.4 percent.

"That's unheard of," he said. "When they talk about fiscal responsibility, we have been doing that for years."


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## kwflatbed (Dec 29, 2004)

Dartmouth override loses by 232 votes

 

JOHN SLADEWSKI/The Standard-Times Lara Stone, right, is overcome with emotion as news of the override vote is announced as Nicole Heaney, center, and Beckie Schnakenberg look on.JOHN SLADEWSKI

By Curt Brown
Standard-Times staff writer
August 01, 2007 6:00 AM
DARTMOUTH - In the largest turnout ever for a town election, voters narrowly rejected an $8.46 million Proposition 2Â½ override Tuesday, triggering the closing of two elementary schools and the implementation of fee-based trash collection and substantial student user fees.
With 53.7 percent of Dartmouth's electorate voting, the override failed by 232 votes, 5,689 to 5,457.
Town Clerk Eleanor J. White said the override drew more voters to the polls than any other town election.
In a nonbinding question, voters overwhelmingly said they wanted the Select Board to adopt a split tax rate, voting 9,709 to 1,365 in favor of it. Currently, Dartmouth has a single tax rate, where businesses and homeowners pay the same.
Barry Walker, chairman of the Dartmouth Override Opponents, the anti-override group, said defeat of the override is a message that the town needs to cut spending.
"It's so close we will have to make compromises and meet in the middle," said Mr. Walker, a self-employed cabinet maker. "We will have to work together. It won't be one-side dictating.
"We will have to meet in the middle," he said.
Doug Roscoe, a UMass Dartmouth political science professor and chairman of the pro-override group Coalition for Dartmouth, was disappointed with the outcome. He believes the town will come to see the override's defeat as a mistake.
"I think the town will look back at this two or three years from now as a decisive moment for the worst," he said.
Opponents of the override had argued that a five-year financial plan for the town should precede any override. The town charter requires that town fathers have such a plan and the Select Board is in the process of preparing one.
The defeat of the override means the Cushman and Gidley elementary schools will close for a year on a temporary basis.
The students from those schools will attend the Quinn Elementary School, boosting enrollment to nearly 1,000 and creating a mega-elementary school that will be one of the largest in the state.
The closing of the two schools and consolidation of their students at Quinn will consume all the remaining space in school buildings, school officials have said.
If Gov. Deval Patrick imposes all-day kindergarten for the state, Dartmouth will not be able to comply, officials said.
The projected enrollment of 960 students at the Quinn School is more than double the figure of 400 to 500 students, considered the optimum learning environment for elementary students.
The School Department also intends to impose student user fees for parking, busing and participation fees for clubs, music and athletics for students at Dartmouth High School.
In addition, the defeat of the override means the public libraries could lose their state certification and there will have to be a reduction in senior services, according to Joseph Michaud, a Select Board member. Fee-based trash collection is now slated to start in October.
Mr. Michaud added that town departments will also have to raise fees for licenses and permits in an attempt to become self-sufficient.
Dartmouth High School students Kevin Lin and Josh Luis, who held pro-override signs outside the Council on Aging, said they participate in several school activities - and they are not happy about the fees.
Others weren't happy, as well. There was an angry outburst by a pro-override supporter as Mr. Walker was speaking with reporters.
"Will you be at Quinn for the first day of school?" one woman shouted at Mr. Walker as he stood outside the town clerk's office in Town Hall.
There was a brief moment Tuesday night at Town Hall when both sides felt the override had passed.
In Precincts 3 and 7, the override lost by only 10 votes. Both sides felt the slight margin had to be larger to offset expected pro-override wins in Precincts 8, 9 and 10.
"It's going to pass," Mr. Walker said at that point.
"That's a good sign," said Select Board member Robert W. Carney, an override supporter, looking at results from Precincts 3 and 7.
The override would have eliminated a $5.5 million deficit for fiscal 2008 and would have provided sufficient capital for the town to operate without an override for three years, officials said.
The $8.46 million in new revenue would have been permanently added to the town's tax levy and would have raised taxes by $210, for a home valued at $300,000. The tax hike was based on the adoption of a split tax rate with businesses paying 50 percent more than homeowners.
Select Board member Mr. Michaud said he was disappointed with the results.
"Now we have fewer options at our disposal," he said. "We don't have the choices anymore. This is reality."

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070801/NEWS/708010347


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## bbelichick (Aug 25, 2002)

Are they still sending their guys to other towns with SEMLEC?


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## USMCTrooper (Oct 23, 2003)

girlcop21 said:


> *Level of police service will drop if override fails*
> "The only other place I can cut is staffing," he said. "My expenses are bare bones. With understaffing, you run the risk of overtime."
> 
> The chief said he needs every officer he has to properly patrol Dartmouth's 218 miles of roadway and 64 square miles, which makes the community the fourth largest in the state.
> ...


It a shame this agency has cuts to make. Nobody should lose their job because of this. However, checking out the annual report the department filed as recent as 2005 it seems the Chief had funds to do alot of things that didn't coincide with, what he wrote, the citizens were "overhwelmingly" concerned with.

http://www.town.dartmouth.ma.us/2005%20Dartmouth%20Text.pdf




> Input from our citizens has been invaluable to the Dartmouth Police. Because our citizens take the time to express their collective concerns and suggestions, we are better able to jointly problem solve._* Overwhelmingly, our citizens have two major concerns expressed, that of a desire of increased traffic enforcement by our Department and that of addressing littering *__*and illegal dumping in our Town. We are trying our best to free up Officers to concentrate on these concerns.....*_​


How do you address such "concerns" when, at the same time, he had money to join S.E.M.L.E.C. and to pay for Dartmouth officers to respond _outside_ the community. The Town has 33,000 residents. Yet they have or had: 4 K-9's; a 4 man Dive Team and an Accident Recon team. My Town is 30,000 and we have none of those. We use the free services of the MSP. My taxes are low and we aren't asked for a rate hike. If I were a tax payer in the Dartmouth knowing this, I'd be hard pressed to vote myself a tax increase for them too.....



> The *S.E.M.L.E.C.* (Southeastern Massachusetts Law Enforcement Council) affiliation also provides the benefit of mutually shared equipment and resources including an Underwater R.O.V.(Remotely Operated Vehicle), with video and sonar capability, video recording devices.We also house the new regional Police Dive Rescue Boat, 23-foot aluminum "Safe Boat" that will be available to the Town if the need arises. In July, The Police Dive team was called as a member of S.E.M.L.E.C to Wareham to assist that agency in locating and recovering a drowning victim. Upon our arrival at the scene, we were able to establish a search area and direct the regional divers to complete the assigned task. In October, The Dartmouth Police Dive Team as part of S.E.M.L.E.C. responded to the Taunton Dam Emergency where a dam break was imminent and the citizens of Taunton were threatened. *Dive team members were deployed for 72 hours  (what did this cost?) *and were ready for action, if the dam had failed and lives were threatened.​


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