[MissoulaGov] Committee Update 2-10-10

Thu Feb 11 10:01:32 MST 2010

Come on Ed, you can do better than that!

That lengthy "job description" list for the cops is important for your
budget review (I agree about your idea of council going through it line
by line), but it is not necessary to give the citizens a picture of the
services provided.

How many crimes were committed and how many arrested, ticketed,
prevented or otherwise policed?

How much was spent chasing speeding cars and how much doing fancy CSI on
murders?

How many street-miles patrolled? 

From: missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com
[mailto:missoulagov-bounces at cmslists.com] On Behalf Of Ed Childers
Sent: Thursday, February 11, 2010 9:54 AM
To: Bob Jaffe
Cc: missoulagov at cmslists.com
Subject: Re: [MissoulaGov] Committee Update 2-10-10

Bob Jaffe wrote: 

Greetings,

[snip]

The last meeting of the day was COW for the goals discussion. Besides
Ed's best efforts it went really well.

Defied all expectations. Well done City Council.

[snip]

Renee was hoping we could get some kind of inventory of city services so
we could prioritize them and identify possible duplications of service.
I think this would be a good idea too. I think people will be impressed
to see the list of services they receive for an average price of
$60/month/household. 

I thought this was a great idea but now I'm not sure it would be helpful
to pull that information out of the budget, since it's voluminous and
readily available.

For instance, as an example, here's the goals and objectives of the
Detective Division of the Police Dept., which is in the General Fund
<http://www.ci.missoula.mt.us/index.aspx?NID=923> . (Police also has
Administration and Uniform Patrol divisions.
The Police Dept. budget runs about 11 million dollars a year.

Detective Division
The Detective Captain oversees criminal investigative personnel in
General Investigations, Drug
Enforcement and Evidence and ID Unit.

*	      Screen and assign cases for follow-up investigation.
*	      Pursue justice on behalf of victims of crimes against
persons and crimes against property.
*	      Refer cases to the City, County and U.S. Attorneys for
prosecution.
*	      Maintain an offender based investigative program including
domestic violence, sexual offenders and violent offenders.
*	      Focus resources on youth violence and the Youth Justice
system.
*	      Participate in community based partnerships to address
problems, control criminals and help victims.
*	      Disrupt the supply and demand of illicit drugs through
enforcement and education of the community.
*	      Work cooperatively with partner agencies in the
investigation and enforcement of illegal narcotics laws.
*	      Assist other divisions with developing responses to
emerging crime trends.
*	      Develop technology resources and cyber crimes
investigations abilities.
*	      Collect, maintain or dispose of evidence and property
according to accepted protocols.
*	      Process crime scenes to locate and collect evidentiary
materials, as requested.
*	      Process physical evidence, including: fingerprints, tool
marks, fibers and trace evidence.
*	      Maintain digital image evidence and prepare visual aids
for court or department presentations.
*	      Perform fingerprinting services and submit fingerprint
cards to state and federal agencies, as required.
*	      Perform handwriting analysis and comparisons.
*	      Submit items of evidence to Montana State Crime Laboratory
for detailed examination.

What we can do, and may eventually have to do, is go line by line
through departments' Goals and Objectives (there's a short Program
Description but I think it's not helpful for this discussion) and decide
what has to be kept and what has to go. For what it's worth, I don't see
anything in this list that should be done away with. Oh, and the part
about maintaining evidence? Our facilities don't lend themselves to
that. I'm trying to put it nicely.

[snip]

Thank you for your interest,   

Bob Jaffe

Missoula City Council, Ward Three

1225 South 2nd West

Missoula, MT 59801

(406) 880-2052

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