You’d think that would be a thing we’d all want.
Mayor John Whitmire
Mayor John Whitmire has made clear he intends to boost salaries and benefits for Houston police officers in their new union contract, but those increases will not be tied to performance.
That means officers across all divisions can expect better pay and benefits regardless of whether crime goes up or response times slow down, clearance rates improve or traffic deaths increase.
Whitmire is pushing to increase officer pay and benefits even after a city-commissioned efficiency study concluded that fewer than half of HPD’s performance targets are being met and improving.
The study by accounting giant Ernst and Young recommended adding more performance measures to hold the department accountable for dollars spent.
Both the Whitmire administration and the Houston Police Officers Union, however, say tying police salaries to departmental performance would not be appropriate. Their focus, instead, is on making Houston police salaries comparable to those in Texas’ other big cities, in an effort to recruit and retain officers for a department they say is understaffed for a city this size.
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So-called key performance indicators are included in the annual city budget to measure whether departments make progress toward their goals.
Among HPD’s performance indicators are goals to maintain its average response times for priority calls, reduce crime, and release a percentage of body cam footage of “critical incidents” within 30 days.
The auditors recommended adding metrics, including the number of civilian complaints per officer and rates of violent, property and hate crimes.
City officials told Ernst and Young it could not “tell the cops how to cop,” [deputy chief of staff Steven] David said, but the consultants still could help find ways to make department more efficient
Once performance metrics are set, they will need to be continuously monitored and adjusted, David said.
City Council approved a second contract with Ernst and Young last month for an additional $4 million to help create performance improvement measures for each individual department, including HPD, David said.
Houston Police Officers Union President Doug Griffith said he anticipates the union and city will finalize a draft of a new labor contract this month, but he did not have a problem with the city giving the police more performance goals.
“We’re working on the contract. It has nothing to do with the efficiency study,” Griffith said. “But like every department, no matter where you are or what job it is, there’s always ways to make it more efficient. We look forward to that happening here with our department, as well.”
HPD leadership and the Houston Finance Department, which is overseen by the mayor’s office, are responsible for determining the annual performance indicators. They are not bargained by the police union.
However, the timing of the union negotiations could be worked to the mayor’s advantage, said Daniel DiSalvo, a politics and labor union expert with The City College of New York. DiSalvo said Whitmire’s team could use the suggestions laid out in the efficiency report as a tool to justify increased wages.
DiSalvo gave the example of tying better police response times, which are almost always used as an indicator of success, with increased funding: if the city allots additional funds for more officers or better vehicles, response times may improve.
“The question would be, what performance metrics could actually translate into a work rule that would encourage better performance?” DiSalvo said. “The other way to put it is, think negatively, are there work rules that are in the existing contract that are actively weakening the department?”
We’re not “telling them how to cop”, we’re setting a goal. They can figure out how to achieve it. The challenge here is that whatever efficiencies we may find and the improvements we may be able to wring out of them, it can never translate into savings for the city, because the Republicans in the Legislature passed a law forbidding local governments from ever cutting law enforcement budgets. So whatever we agree to pony up here, we’re going to be stuck with it. Given that reality, the least we can do is make sure we’re getting our money’s worth.
Maybe John can bring in DOGE so they can look for ways to cut costs and streamline the Department…since the City seems to be okay with spending taxpayer money all willy nilly.
Police are having a hard time recruiting, so maybe that would help. Response times are abysmal but I don’t know if the officers are responsible for that. Also, I don’t know if we can evaluate the police by whether crime rates increase or decrease on their beat. Police are more in the business of responding rather than preventing. No longer is their a neighborhood officer who walks a beat and knows the residents.
If you want to have a more efficient police force, cut out all the insanity Houston is producing. Shut down the after hours clubs, stop making Houston a ‘destination’ place, cancel the world cup, the super bowl, etc. If you want a perspective about the craziness Houston produces, look at the sexual offenders map, which is public access, and see the concentration of offenders in Houston, it’s staggering. Police are not responsible for making all that insanity, they’re just the ones who manage it.
DF, you would do great in a Trump cabinet.
David, if HPD enforced their own policies, response times would drop according to one of their sergeants who lives in my neighborhood. They are assigned differing levels of geographic responsibility but are often found well outside where they are supposed to be for their impromptu team huddles, eating, checking out what others are working on, or off doing an endless number of personal tasks.
Audits released in the past confirm those practices as well as others that put residents second to the whims of cops doing what they want to do. So curtailing events, businesses, and where people can live instead of directly fixing how the cops do things is not helpful. Any concentrations of offenders is likely due to the limited options most of them have, rural Texas rarely allows halfway houses and these people are required to live within certain distances of things. We pay the cops enough that they should keep inside their own lanes rather than worry about those who have paid their debts to society.