On Tuesday, September 10th, you will be asked to vote for or against adding a franchise fee to your Mid-American utility bill. For the average home, this would be about a $6.85 bump in their monthly utility bill. 100% of the money raised by this fee will be poured back into our community in the form of 8 additional police officers.
We understand that, for many community members, the idea of voting for an increase in any bill right now might feel unrealistic. We understand that! However, we urge you to think about how this could impact our community and the public servants who protect it.
Currently, the Fort Dodge Police Department is authorized to have 40 sworn officers. Fully staffed, they would have 7 officers answering calls for service. However, because of training, vacations, illness, and turnover the department is rarely at full staff and this often means having 5 officers to cover a shift. Just this past week, the average amount of calls received by the call center was about 84 calls per day. Assuming that each call can be answered by one officer, (oftentimes this is not possible) that is a lot of calls for each officer to answer in a 12 hour period. Additionally, there are calls that require the service of most officers on duty. This spreads out their time to a point where timely responses to calls can be difficult.
It should be known that officers in this town work hard to ensure your safety, but burnout is very real. On a daily basis, they see and deal with the unimaginable. Because of this, officers require a lot of training before they are ready to answer a call. This training is expensive and is also covered by our tax dollars. When an officer is hired and the city has invested in his/her training, the hope is that they remain within the community that made the investment. However, when a department is chronically understaffed (whether because it doesn’t have all positions filled or it FEELS understaffed because there is a high workload for the budgeted staff) many officers are drawn to departments that have a lighter workload. Supporting the Case for 8 will allow our department to hire the officers it needs to help spread out the workload and protect our officers from burnout, protecting the investment in their training.
Criminals weigh their risk of getting caught. Just like they avoid homes with security systems, they avoid areas not only where police presence is known, but also where the police are effective at solving crime. Hiring an evening investigator, as is the plan in the Case for 8, could mean the difference between solving a case or not. Investigators are specially trained to gather evidence and to ensure that proper protocols are followed. When done correctly, this increases the closure rates.
Every community benefits when its officers shift into a position where they are proactive instead of reactive. Proactive policing means being able to look at the data from committed crimes and use it to prevent it from happening again. Data is an excellent tool, however, it takes time to gather and study. An understaffed department simply does not have the time to be able to use it to its full potential. With more officers on staff, this could be an option to make our community a difficult place to commit crime.
These are just a few reasons to consider supporting the Case for 8. We have a great police department and they are very effective. The fact that they are so successful with their closure rates says a lot about their dedication and commitment to Fort Dodge. Let’s help make it a little more sustainable and bring our department up to the numbers that match what other communities have already done.
