Today, at a press conference that the public heard about maybe an hour and a half before it occurred, the Mayor and Chief Cummings announced ONE MORE Crime plan for Wilmington. It seems that not many people know what is in this plan (even City Councilpeople Sherry Dorsey and Hanifa Shabazz who endorsed it all without seeing it), and although there was some rumor that the plan would be available to the public shortly after the press conference, this plan is not on the City’s website where the public can take a look or was it provided to the Governor or the WPSSC as a courtesy. So we have a press conference that was designed to exclude as many Wilmingtonians as possible, continuing the contempt this Mayor has for the citizens of Wilmington. But here is the gist of what is supposed to be on deck:
The plan calls for two new inspectors, a chief information officer, and a director of communications. Those positions will add $827,116 to the city’s operating budget, which would require city council approval. Currently, the Wilmington Police Department has a $54 million budget.
Williams said he’ll introduce an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2016 budget if that’s what it takes to get the funding for these positions.
They are adding more people and asking for almost $1M to do it. They’re expanding the Community Police Unit (while removing most of the current officers, including removing its highly-effective management), and that expansion is welcome. They say they are implementing 83% of the Commissions recommendations, and I don’t have access to this new plan that only a handful of people have seen, so I can’t say for certain what is going on here. And I hope that the local media will back check this. I can tell you that some key things are missing from what has been reported so far about this plan:
- A commitment to better use the taxpayer funds the WPD already gets. If they are asking City Council for money, that indicates to me that they are not planing to rein in overtime costs. If they were, then it would be those savings funding some of these positions. The WPSSC was very clear that the citizens of the City of Wilmington fund the WPD very well — with the possible of exception of salaries competitive with other PDs locally. Included here is the recommendation to manage for a minimum daily deployment — manage approvals for vacation and time off to ensure that you have the right number of officers on the street.
- How much more money do they need to support this new infrastructure? How many more hires, what additional equipment?
- A Deputy Chief. Instead of the Inspector for Strategic Planning, just go ahead and hire a Deputy Chief.
- Where’s the accountability? Go back to my comments on overtime.
- The Community Stabilization Unit to deal with hotspots? Where is that? Or the data analysis piece?
I could do this all night. But let’s remember the main themes of the WPSSC report:
- The WPD is well-funded, but mismanages its resources.
- The WPD management does not manage the department for results or accountability.
- The WPD is well behind the current best practices of policing — needing to expand community policing, needing to implement a number of best practices, and needing to formulate an intelligence and data-led police force.
I can’t tell if they are planning to get to a better managed place from this rollout that focuses on who gets hired and how much money it needs. Accountability costs little, and the biggest two things that are needed are a Deputy Chief and the data center. But the fact that they need more money and aren’t going to get a better bang for the buck from better management of overtime is very, very worrying. Because the last time a Wilmington Police Chief asked for a large increase in resources, he used them to expand his empire — not to provide the level of community policing promised.
So if anyone actually sees this plan (it isn’t on the City’s website as of this writing), let me know. And let me point out the biggest misleading thing the Williams Administration did today — have you seen this press release? There’s a Chris Coons quote that is used inappropriately here — this quote was of Senator Coons discussing the City’s work with the VRN. Senator Coons was not asked to support the Mayor’s plan and nor did he see that plan. So not a very good job by the Williams Administration to try to give themselves some approval here. Misusing that quote was just sleazy.
h/t for the awesome photo to Gina DellaDonne.