AMARILLO, TEXAS -- A few days ago, we first told you about the Amarillo City Commission approving a tax increase for a downtown sports complex.
In our newsroom the topic came up about budgets, what about an increase in our emergency care workers? So we contacted the police department and it said it's not at odds with the city and where it spends money, but it does want them to know they need forces too.
That's the situation as departments are getting ready to ask for funding as the city of Amarillo works on its budget. "We used to be able to respond in just a few minutes to anywhere in amarillo, now because of the time constraints I mentioned before, we're in a situation for where a lot times for non-priority calls, it may take us several hours to get those calls," said Steve Mitchell, who is an Amarillo Police Department Rangemaster at the shooting range for the city and he is also part of the police association.
Those time constraints include officers traveling more to book suspects into the Potter and Randall county jails, they have more reports to do, more computer processing,and more state statutes to deal with. All that takes officers out of service.
"It used to be a lot simpler, now it's more difficult, I'm not saying for me, but it is for a lot of the officers themselves," said Mitchell. So it wants the city to know, it's hurting. When I sat down with commissioners, they said safety is the number one concern.
"Some of these local officers are absolutely right. They feel like they're having to compromise in the quality of the public health, the public safety they're providing and we've got to provide them the tools they need to be able to do their job in a quality fashion," Brian Eades, an Amarillo City Commissioner.
"With safety being as high a priority as it is, officers are you know, more than likely we will be expanding the police department," said Jim Simms, who is also an Amarillo City Commissioner.
In order to fulfill the needs of a growing city, officers, like a sports complex, are things the city says it needs, and needs to work out carefully. "Those certificates of obligation will be paid off in 20 years. Those police officers or those employees that you higher will still be here. We also have to be careful when we're spending money on buildings. That's a one time expense and hiring new people or increasing salaries that goes on forever," said Simms.
Eades said, "We've been through recently a very difficult budget cycle where we've been down millions, Now, in terms of our sales tax, we are recovering. We've hired about 21 police officers in the last 5 years, we need many more to get up to what are considered appropriate standards, but it's very important that we get the right kind of officers. We really don't need a lot more officers lined up along 1-40 watching traffic offenders and writing tickets. What we need are people that are detectives because the case load is too high. But additionally, we need officers on the streets. Now that our sales tax revenues are starting to recover, I can just tell you that's one of the things we're going to be focusing on in the upcoming commission," said Eades.
That's good news for the safety of the city, and the officers who don't want to have to prioritize when it comes to a making it your house.
"Crime hasn't taken a holiday and the bad thing about this in my thinking is, if we fall behind in law enforcement the criminals aren't taking a day off, they're not waiting for us to get caught up," said Mitchell.
City staff have already started work on a budget, they will keep doing that through the summer and until it gets handed over to the commission to look at.
