Bend Police Lay Out Proposed Service Cuts

One Bend city councilor called the police department’s current budget situation “dismal” Wednesday night as Police Chief Jeff Sale presented a list of planned service cuts.

“Thanks for the public service announcement for crime — my goodness!” said Councilor Jodie Barram. “If I were a criminal, now you know what things to go do, I guess. You know what our police department isn’t going to be able to follow up on.”

Over the last several years, the Bend Police Department has had to do more with fewer and fewer, and that message was made louder and clearer than ever Wednesday night.

In 2007-2008, the department cut the K-9 force, from four to two. More recently, they moved the Patrol Division to a new schedule to reduce the amount of mandatory training.

The department says they are now running out of things to cut, and are having to come up with new ways to save money, one of which is shifting around who takes care of what.

“The Investigations Division does follow-up work,” Sale told councilors. “It doesn’t mean we are going to ignore the crime. It means that it’s probably not going to get the follow-up it gets today, or it has historically gotten.”

At the meeting, Sale told councilors the Investigations Division (detectives) no longer will be doing follow-ups on thefts of property under $100,000. It will be left up to patrol officers, and will be limited by the amount of time they have.

Councilors heard the proposal in a work session and weren’t asked to approve the changes, which are likely to be part of their upcoming budget discussions. But they know there’s a crunch, and it won’t be an easy problem to solve, with public safety a top priority for all concerned.

“I don’t have an answer for you today,” Barram said, “but I’m glad that the conversation is starting. Because we have more than just an expense problem. There’s a revenue issue as well.”

Sale also proposed a new ordinance aimed at cutting back on false alarms within the city, prompting a lengthy discussion of the sticky details.

“Part of our problem is we don’t know how many alarms exist in the city,” said Sale, “We don’t have contacts for all those alarm systems. So we spend a tremendous amount of time trying to track down owners or responsible parties, so we can get in the building and verify that it’s a false alarm and clear it.”

The proposed ordinance would create a fee- and fine-based system within the city. Businesses would then have to register their alarm system with the city, and face a fine for repeated false alarms.

“A lot of them (businesses) that have motion sensors may leave a balloon from something hanging, and all of the sudden there’s a breeze and that balloon starts to move, and it sets off their motion sensors and sets off their alarms,” said Sale. “Then we respond to those. We’re trying to get those types of calls reduced, so that our people can be doing other things rather than responding to those alarms.”

Sale said Bend police spend about $111,000 a year responding to and clearing false alarms, when all costs are factored in.

But after much discussion, councilors voted 7-0 Wednesday night to table discussion of the ordinance proposal for at least two more weeks. Councilor Tom Greene, among others, said he wants to talk with the Bend Chamber and business owners about the problem, as the council decides whether fines or fees could recoup the costs, and whether the first false alarm should bring a fine or not.