The commander of the police department’s detective bureau is making a case to add some manpower to the ranks.
“We are strapped in the detective bureau,” Detective Sgt. Ronald Goodmaster, the commander, told the Board of Police Commissioners last Thursday night at Town Hall.
“We have lots of cases and we don’t have enough people to do them. We can be a lot more proactive if we had more people. There are a lot of things we can’t do because we don’t have the people to get out and do it,” Goodmaster said.
The call for extra help in the detective bureau comes at the height of budget season. There apparently is no line item in the police department’s 2010-11 budget request for a new detective.
The budget request is for $3.76 million, up from $3.51 million this year. It represents Chief Michael Metzler’s shaving of $101,000 from his initial proposal to the police commission for the 41-member department.
There is a rising amount of white collar crime that requires investigative work, Goodmaster said. He said the current staff of three detectives — plus himself supervising — just isn’t enough. Since January, Goodmaster has also been in charge of the Community Resource Division and the Youth Division.
Police Commissioner Frank Conroy suggested that perhaps the detective bureau could be supplemented as needed by patrol officers, on a temporary basis. And, at the same time, the department could gather facts to prove its need for an additional detective.
“You’re going to have to have some real true figures. You’re going to have to work a little harder, that’s what the name of the game is,” Conroy said.
Detectives make about $31 an hour, roughly $2 more than patrol officers.
Conroy and other members appeared convinced extra detective help could come by rotating patrol officers through the bureau.
“If you have major crime, I am certain the captain will give you extra people to work in there,” Conroy said. “We have a financial responsibility to the town. The First Selectman has a tough job ahead of him and the Board of Finance too. If this board does not look at every figure coming out of the police department, we are not doing our job. We have to be justified in seeing why we need it. We have got to have reasons for it, that’s all I’m saying.”
Conroy’s idea to supplement the detective bureau by rotating patrol officers through the division was well received by First Selectman Paul Roy and Capt. Paul Beres.
“Absolutely, I think that would be a good solution,” Roy said following the public portion of the meeting.
Chief Metzler was on vacation and not present at the meeting, but Capt. Beres said rotating officers while they get more data would be useful.
“There is a wealth of knowledge and exposure they can get going through a bureau,” Beres said.
