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Top ranks of EG police may leave in a few months, to hold on to their benefits |
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Friday, 06 February 2009 |
BY ABBY FOX
Police Chief David Desjarlais, Deputy Chief Bill Higgins, a sergeant, a detective and a couple of patrolmen could be in their last few months of service for the East Greenwich Police Department. Potentially, as many as eight or nine employees could choose to retire.
The reason for the potential departure is governor’s recent proposal to keep medical benefits, cost of living adjustments and retirement plan for those employees who are eligible to retire – but only to those who decide to retire by the end of the this fiscal year.
When employees who want to hold on to the benefits they’ve worked at least 20 years for leave – as soon as late June – they will also be taking with them a wealth of experience, such as Desjarlais, 43, who’s worked there for 22 years; Captain Higgins, who accumulated 25 years, and Lt. Tom Joyce, juvenile officer, who has put in 47.
Town Manager Bill Sequino said he’s heard from about six police men from that they’re seriously considering retirement, although no one has written him a formal retirement notice. Employees will decide one way or the other more definitely following Gov. Don Carcieri’s state-of-the-state speech on Feb. 10, Desjarlais said.
The probability for soon-approaching retirement means that in very little time, not only does the department have to hire new employees, including new patrolmen to replace those promoted to the top spots – a “very time-consuming process,” Sequino said – but the town also has pay all the vacation and sick leave for the departing, which could cost in the area of $250,000.
“It is a loss to the town,” Sequino said, in both manpower and money, and if the proposal goes through, the town may end the fiscal year short of revenue.
Desjarlais said the “sheer magnitude” of people retiring all at once has many ramifications.
First, there’s the question of how the Rhode Island Municipal Training Academy is going to train enough people to accommodate all the towns who will shortly need more manpower, especially when the academy offers only two to three classes a year, at less than 40 people per class.
Then the town has to deal with the costs and adjustments necessary to handle turning over a number of people in a short span of time, though Desjarlais pointed out that the department’s 75-day rule, where people can stay for 75 days after retiring, could help alleviate that transition.
More broadly, the proposal floating around to change the retirement age, from the current practice of allowing people to retire after 20 years of work – at any age – to mandating that they not retire until age 59, with 20 years’ service, will change the age makeup of the police department, where currently the average age is the mid 30s.
Your 30s may still seem young to most people, Desjarlais said, but police work is a “young man’s” job; “I’m 43 and I was a lot sharper at 23,” he said. So not only does East Greenwich and other towns stand to lose experienced, indeed their most experienced, people; they also may have to face an older (and less fit) force if the retirement age changes.
Desjarlais said the department is facing facts that “the state has to close the budget gap,” and, “I’m not fearful of what’s to come,” in the next few weeks. Although he did add, “I’d love to stay. It’s a great place to work. And I love the town.”
Though the police staff “started a buzz in the hallways” about changes afoot ever since the governor’s budget message of a few weeks ago, he said, the reality saying goodbye to your top men has been discussed more frankly lately, with the department scheduling meetings Tuesday and a town staff meeting on Wednesday.
Desjarlais said the department is ready to face the state’s financial realities, yet he said, “I don’t think it’s going to save much,” and that the proposals haven’t been thought through.
Having seasoned people walk out the door in six month’s time isn’t the only thing on police’s minds; the other is the budgetary proposal to eliminate minimum staffing for police and fire departments, and the stipulation that contracts are signed with manning procedures. “We typically run four officers at any given time,” Desjarlais said; and to go lower could be a grave mistake: perhaps not on a quiet night. But if there’s an incident such as that October night a couple years ago, where officers came under fire on Tillinghast Road, when “we couldn’t find enough people to help out,” the town could have a safety problem on its hands.
How specifically the town is going to deal with all the potential turnover, such as perhaps arranging for more training, still of course remains to be seen. “Whatever happens, I’d like to avoid layoffs,” Sequino said. The town still has a fund balance of just under $2 million, he said, but the potential revenue shortfall, along with all the difficult financial decisions the town has had to make, makes “this year, and the next, the worst budget years I’ve ever experienced,” he said. |
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