Tonight, our city counsil voted 4 to 2 to cut our 26 member department by four officers. No other city department had to take any cuts. The city manager became livid when asked if she would consider other cuts.

On October 1, it looks like four officers (we don't know who yet) will have to look for a new job.

oh man.  damn politicians don't know their ass from a God damned hole in the ground.

Where in Tx are you?

That sucks.

The department I'm at had a massive layoff about 20 years ago and the numbers have yet to reach the levels they were at then. We NEED more people, like twice as many, but the commissioners just aren't willing to pay for it.

Same number of deputies, county size has almost quadrupled in that period of time. It's sheer lunacy.

Can't imagine them cutting positions then going and saying adios to a few officers. That just flat out sucks.

Just another example of stupid, gutless, paper-shuffling, bean-counting politicians & their hired dumbass "managers." In 25 years in law enforcement, city & county, I've never seen a town or county manager who could find his/her ass with both hands & a road map....

But of course, like the pols, their ignorance of how anything in the real world actually works does nothing to blunt their colossal arrogance. Must be something they are taught when they are elected or hired. No one could be born with such a combination of stupidity and arrogance....

Ridiculous!

Sorry to hear.

Here's a good one to add:  Take a lackluster officer FIRED for innappropriate conduct, have him hoodwink and play up his "prior LEO" status to fool voters, make him Mayor of the city where he used to work and put him in charge of the Chief of Police and the force in general.

It would make a good sitcom if it wasn't so goddamned sad.

Lemee tell ya, Buford Pusser this clown ain't.

NorCal

That sucks.  But here in Ga. the same thing is happening.  Other departments are getting pay raises, new equpiment and more people but Police and Sheriffs departments are loosing ground.  The population is going up, crime is going up and the paper pushers are asking why it takes "So Long" for an officer to arrive at a call.   I think when a lot of them get the title "manager"  or "commissioner" it cuts off the blood circulation to the brain and they loose what few brain cells they had left.


Amen and pass the ammunition,

South of Austin.
sk

Sorry to hear that four officers will be out of work.

BUT - Look at it from the other side:  Does your CITY need a 26 person PD?  With 22 will you be paying OT to cover vacations/training etc or will 22 be sufficient?  My dept runs 5 officers plus a Sgt at full staffing and we (officers) run over each other.....

Brian

We are losing our community services officer and an investigator. The investigator is retiring. The community service officer is going to patrol. We had one empty slot. A person was in the hiring process for that slot. He loses out. Our Captain with 24 years informed us today, he is retiring so a younger officer won't lose his job. The rest is just in the reorganizing.

All of that is if the city manager agrees. She could change everything. We'll see.

Stupid idiots; she'll wish she had more guys on the street if she's ever the victim of a violent and or property crime.

I work at the same department. The City is Lockhart 30 miles south of Austin with US183 running down the middle of it. News 8 did a story on this with interviews which aired last night and is still being shown today.
The Captain and CID detective are retiring, one patrol officer was cut and we have an officer leaving for Austin PD in a month or two when they start their next academy. The community policing position has been cut with that officer going back to patrol.
The city wouldn't be in a money crunch had they not spend thousands on several parks "revitalizing an area" which means our Section 8 government housing got some new places to commit crimes since that is where the parks are at. They also spent alot of money on an industrial park that in the year it's been there is nothing but open fields and they are not trying to fill it. Also the trip to China last year for all of the City Council doesn't help. That was suppose to be a business trip that we all know was a tax payer paid vacation for them.
About a week ago we got a directive from the Mayor to stay off of the major roadways running traffic, if you are running traffic you have to do so without hiding and sit with your headlights on. We are not suppose to do bar checks especially at his favorite bar. He doesn't even want us driving into the parking lot. Basically he doesn't want us to arrest him for DWI or any other City Councilmember that drinks and drives. Of course since none of this is in the policy manual and my Sgt. refused to give me a copy of these directives after telling me of them verbally then I can't follow them. There was more of the directive but I cant' remember them.  

I'am not an officer but my feelings are that instead of taking police off the streets they should cut the city council down to free up the funds for police. Police Depts should be growing with the population and/or the crime rate. there are plenty of other places to cut back before you go after the people who protect us! just my 2 cents

Quoted: I work at the same department. The City is Lockhart 30 miles south of Austin with US183 running down the middle of it. News 8 did a story on this with interviews which aired last night and is still being shown today. The Captain and CID detective are retiring, one patrol officer was cut and we have an officer leaving for Austin PD in a month or two when they start their next academy. The community policing position has been cut with that officer going back to patrol. The city wouldn't be in a money crunch had they not spend thousands on several parks "revitalizing an area" which means our Section 8 government housing got some new places to commit crimes since that is where the parks are at. They also spent alot of money on an industrial park that in the year it's been there is nothing but open fields and they are not trying to fill it. Also the trip to China last year for all of the City Council doesn't help. That was suppose to be a business trip that we all know was a tax payer paid vacation for them. About a week ago we got a directive from the Mayor to stay off of the major roadways running traffic, if you are running traffic you have to do so without hiding and sit with your headlights on. We are not suppose to do bar checks especially at his favorite bar. He doesn't even want us driving into the parking lot. Basically he doesn't want us to arrest him for DWI or any other City Councilmember that drinks and drives. Of course since none of this is in the policy manual and my Sgt. refused to give me a copy of these directives after telling me of them verbally then I can't follow them. There was more of the directive but I cant' remember them.

You won't last long. "The Bubba Network" will eat your ass for lunch. Go find another job now in a different line of work.

Hey guys,

Sorry to hear that. I used to work in the other town that starts with an L thats just down the road. The LAST thing that Lockhart needs to do is lose officers. Is any of you going to be able to go over to CCSO?

Tinstar

When I started our department had 15 working road officers/supervisors.  In the last 23 years we've lost 7 officers.  Now we have 8 working officers/supervisors.  For a very small department, that's a lot.  None of the inside positions were ever eliminated just the actual working guys/gals.  

Good luck to those who get the ax.    

An update on our situation here is the City Council jumped on the Chief for giving interviews with the media. Last night there was a City Council meeting in which several members of the community spoke on our behalf with one of them being the owner of one of the two local papers basically reminding the Council who they work for and advising them on the 1st Amendment rights of Freedom of Speech. After the meeting the citizens let us know that they are starting a re-call petition to get the Mayor out and put one of them in.  It looks like the City Council bit off more than they can chew.

Outstanding! Good luck over there.

Outstanding!

Ahh, small town politics.

Lockhart and Luling, as well as the county are famous for training officers that then go somewhere else.

Right off the top of my head I can name 5 of my fellow officers that came from Lockhart.

BTW: Guys, we're hiring.

John, You must be with the parks.

sk

I actually liked working in Luling. The chief was always good to me.

I FEEL FOR YOU MY BROTHER, SOME CITY'S DON'T KNOW WHEN THEY GOT IT GOOD, CITY COUNCILS AND MANAGERS SOMETIME THINK THE EASY WAY TO SAVE MONEY IS TO CUT THIS OR CUT THAT, BUT YOU DON'T CUT YOUR POLICE FORCE, RUN THE CITY LIKE A BUSINESS, THE NEST TIME THE YOU KNOW WHAT HITS THE FAN THEY WILL WISH THEY  HAD THOUGHT THIS THRU

I hear you... we just got told to "cut our budget by 20%" by the Mayor & Council.




Of course, the fact that 83% of our budget is personnel expenses might prove a problem...

It seems CLEAT is getting involved on Tuesday.

Last Tuesday about 100 people packed the city counsel meeting protesting the cuts. The editor of one of the papers called for the termination of the person who gave the chief a "gag order".

It's getting pretty interesting around here.

sk

I say the remaining 22 all get a case of the blue flu!!!!!

Screw those politicians!!!     If they need to cut 4 positions let there be 4 less city council members!!!

Update:

The city counsil has pissed off both of the local papars. There is a recall petition being circulated to recall the mayor and others.

We are actually losing the Captain, Luetenant, one investigator, and the guy that did not get hired. The Capt. and Lt. are leaving at the end of the month and the investigator later. I think there will be people moving up, but that still leaves patrol hurting.

Moral is at an all time low and a lot of officers are looking for greener pastures.

sk

Update:

We now will have no chain of command. We are down to one investigator, four sgt's and the Lt. over communications. The Chief turned in his resignation today. We lost the Capt, one LT, two investigators, the community service officer, and a couple patrol officers.

The patrol officers are being replaced.We don't know how the city manager is going to promote a new Capt, LT, or investigators. Let alone a new Chief.

The recall petition failed.

I only thought moral was at an all time low. Prayers would be good. Thanks.

sk

Time to move.

Cities are bleeding from liberal spending sprees for social dogooder programs.

My cousin was a mid level manager for a mid sized city back east. They kept cutting and cutting from the bottom up. They had wanted her (very college professional) to start splitting secretarial duties with other white collar workers. All the blue collars were gone already.

She left, then 2 others left, and now the city is really hurtin. Her former department of a dozen now has 1/2 that, and none of them know what they are doing. And the new hires are quitting faster than they can replace them.


It only gets worse when spending goes unchecked. And the citizens always suffer first, last and worst.

Quoted: Update: We now will have no chain of command. We are down to one investigator, four sgt's and the Lt. over communications. The Chief turned in his resignation today. We lost the Capt, one LT, two investigators, the community service officer, and a couple patrol officers. The patrol officers are being replaced.We don't know how the city manager is going to promote a new Capt, LT, or investigators. Let alone a new Chief. The recall petition failed. I only thought moral was at an all time low. Prayers would be good. Thanks. sk

Oh shit.  This is getting worse.  If it weren't for the real life implications this would be a farce.  A farce is humorous.  This is just a pathetic sad situation.

We may be short but at least that means I may only have one or two officers to back me up.  Worse case scenario is I just put my blinders on for an evening.