Memo- Overtime Grant-MN Dept of Public SafetyMemorandum
POLICE DEPARTMENT
To: Steve Mielke, City Manager
From: Chief Earl Johnson
Date: February 12, 1998
Subject: Overtime Grant - Minnesota Department Of Public Safety
As you are aware, the Police Department has made application for and received a grant
from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. The grant is intended to target
community oriented policing and is directed towards supplementing personnel overtime
costs in the amount of $10,000.00.
The grant specifies that we assign officers on an overtime basis to high crime areas
within our jurisdiction. When we received notification that we had been awarded the
grant, the City Council expressed a desire to provide input as to how the Department
prioritized the target areas. The Council session on March 3, 1998 will provide this
opportunity.
The Minnesota Department of Public Safety, through this grant, affords us the
opportunity to plan a response to ongoing police problem areas. It does, however,
acknowledge the importance of allowing each department to constantly re- evaluate
their targets based on calls for service, citizen complaints, crime rates, etc. This is
important in that we can re- assign our personnel to specific assignments that will
maximize our effectiveness in dealing with juvenile crime.
The grant will be implemented May 15, 1998 and will run through August 15, 1998. Our
proposal is to assign a team of two officers that would work four hours on Friday,
Saturday, and one week night that would be rotated. These teams of officers will be
assisted by our Crime Prevention Specialist, on -duty patrol officers, and our Police
Reserves while working specific details. These details could involve liquor stings,
alcohol compliance, bicycle patrols, curfew sweeps, special surveillance, beat officers,
and a host of other assignments.
The Department will continue to work with the Chemical Health Commission, Crime
Free Multi- Housing Program, Hopkins Apartment Manager's Association, the school
district and our neighborhood officers to involve the community and to provide dialogue
with both the grant officers and all of our personnel. The grant officers will also attend
meetings of these organizations so that we continue to have solid communications that
will aid us in identifying problems and also will afford us the opportunity to evaluate our
effectiveness as judged by our customers. The grant officers will also focus their efforts
on teen dances, The Depot Coffee House, Teens Alone and other organizations that
provide support systems for our juveniles.
We are in the process of training four additional neighborhood officers that will work
closely with our existing neighborhood officers, and our juvenile detective, to form an
additional coalition and serve as a resource for the grant officers.
One of our goals is to decrease calls for service for both part one and part two crimes in
a specific area. It is important to note, however, that very often when additional
resources in the form of a saturation patrol or a task force is assigned, we see calls for
service increase for a period of time because of the awareness that we create on the
part of the citizens. The additional one on one communications very often encourages
people to call more frequently and calls for service can increase. This is very beneficial
and should not be viewed as a negative when evaluating the impact of the specific
program. We anticipate creating a community survey that will be distributed by our
personnel to both citizens and businesses in the target areas. These surveys will
measure customer satisfaction both before and after our efforts to target problems
within their neighborhood. Through the use of the media, neighborhood meetings,
neighborhood officer meetings, etc. will provide a high visibility that will continue to pay
big dividends long after the grant period expires.
ELJ /vc
dpsgrant