CALEA is all done, so why are still paying $110,135 annually for it, while critical services go unfunded?

Last month the Administration wrapped up the project that's been their main focus since they got here in 2014 of obtaining CALEA accreditation. There was an earlier post back in July where we went over the high cost of getting accredited and how it's generally useless to the employees and the people of the Town so we wont rehash that here.

What I'd like to discuss is now that we have the accreditation, what's it going to cost us year to year to maintain it, and how it's disrupting the core Police functions of the Department. The finances of the Department aren't really the business of the Union, we don't have any say in what they spend money on. However when we have important training being cut and denied to our members, and our SWAT team struggling to obtain basic equipment they need to do their jobs safely because the Administration claims it doesn't have the funding, it becomes our business.

Shortly after this Administration took Office in 2014 they created a full time position for an Officer to work on Accreditation. Now that we've completed it that Officer has not been pulled from that assignment and continues to work on... I don't know what, while collecting a base salary of $74,209 plus benefits. This wouldn't be a problem except for the fact that we currently have a staffing shortage Department wide. In fact when I asked why we haven't made any more Detectives off our current active list I was told it was because the Chief was concerned about Patrol staffing and didn't want to promote anyone unnecessarily because then they would become ineligible to work Patrol. So they've effectively sacrificed an investigative position that does actual Police work directly benefiting the citizens in order to maintain an accreditation position that no longer serves any real purpose. This seems counterintuitive considering the stated mission of CALEA is to provide Chiefs with "a blueprint that promotes the efficient use of resources and improves service delivery." Doesn't this seem like the push for CALEA has in fact made us use resources less efficiently and been detrimental to our delivery of core Police services?

Furthermore, a part time consultant was also hired to assist with Accreditation at a rate of $31,861 a year. This consultant also still works here despite the job he was brought in to consult on being completed. I did consulting work myself prior to becoming an Officer, and at every job I had as soon as the work I was hired to do was done, I was let go and moved on to the next one. So why is this guy being kept on staff, is he now a permanent employee? What's he doing now?

After the Accreditation was completed, our Department sent a delegation consisting of seven people to the CALEA Conference in Kentucky for a week. That included the entire command staff and the Mayor. That's flights, hotel rooms, and probably rental cars for seven people coming out of our budget that's apparently so strapped we cant afford basic equipment needed to do our jobs. And why was a part time employee taken on a field trip to Kentucky while our Officers are regularly being denied off site training classes they actually need to do their jobs supposedly due to funding shortages? Seems like the Chief has his priorities backwards.

So where could this money be better spent rather than on Accreditation? Let's dive into some of the ongoing issues the supposed lack of funding has created. First off look at our firearms unit. We're down to training once a year with our duty weapons, and when we do get to shoot we're limited in how much we can actually shoot due to a lack of ammunition because we cant afford it. We don't use our firearms frequently, but when we do, proficiency is critical to ensure the safety of our Officers and those we serve. Any firearms expert will tell you shooting is skill that is heavily reliant on repetition and muscle memory, once a year just isn't enough to build that up.

We also have non lethal beanbag shotguns sitting in our armory that our Firearms Unit has been trying to get out to Officers on the road for over a year. But the Admin refuses to authorize the training for these tools so we have another non lethal option available on hot calls. I can only assume this refusal is cost related because there doesn't seem to be any other logical explanation. Holding up the rollout of these shotguns could have the effect of forcing us to use lethal force when we maybe wouldn't have to if there was another option available.

Additionally we've heard from several members of the SWAT team that all of their ballistic vests and helmets are well past their expiration dates and Deputy Chief Hawkins has refused to authorize the purchase of replacement equipment. Yes this equipment is expensive, but once purchased it's good for ten years. Some of our SWAT Officers are wearing hand me down uniforms that are several sizes too big for them, and some of them weren't given any uniform at all and are instead forced to wear their US military issued uniforms or personally owned clothes to calls. How are we so broke that we cant even afford to buy a couple pairs of pants and shirts, but Accreditation has a blank check book?

You may also remember a while back when our 30+ year old SWAT armored vehicle caught on fire while driving on Route 2 and was totaled. That vehicle was never replaced, instead our SWAT team rides around in what is basically a moving van with no armor plating whatsoever. We had an opportunity to obtain a free used armored car from Brinks, all we had to do was go to a conference near Washington DC, fill out the paperwork and drive it home. Somehow DC Hawkins managed to make it all the way down there on the Town's dime, spend a few days hob knobbing at the conference, and never filled out the paperwork to get the truck, coming home empty handed. His explanation to the SWAT team was that he couldn't find the Brinks booth at the convention center. Now ignoring the fact that he simply could have asked someone for directions at any point during the several days he spent there, I've heard from others who were at that conference that the Brinks booth was literally the first thing you saw when you walked in the door. It was so prominent in fact that several people mistook it for the general information booth. I don't know if this is incompetence or intentional, but either way it's foolish to waste an opportunity to get free equipment that we desperately need.

Interestingly enough, when the CALEA on site evaluators came to EHPD to do their inspection, that very day a brand new armored SWAT vehicle appeared in our parking lot for them to inspect. However as soon as they left, the brand new SWAT truck disappeared, never to be seen again. I hear it was on loan from another Department. Does the Administration think our SWAT team is a joke? Do they have no respect or concern for the safety of any of the Officers who train hard to be on it? I cant think of any explanation other than complete incompetence for their actions here. We have highly skilled Officers who've quit the team because it's been so neglected over the years. This leaves both our Officers on street, and the citizens of the Town in a more dangerous position.

Our fleet is in shambles, training is at bare minimum levels, our guns don't shoot straight, and we don't have enough computers for a whole squad to use at the same time, and God forbid you need a pen or a notepad, they wont buy us those anymore either! We don't even allow employees below the rank of Sergeant have access to color printers because the toner is too expensive. And sadly that's just the tip of the dysfunction iceberg.

We all understand this isn't Glastonbury, money isn't falling off trees in East Hartford. But how can you impose such strict austerity upon your employees while spending lavishly on your pet projects right under our noses and expect us to see it as anything other than disrespectful?

Accreditation has been the greatest fraud perpetrated on this Department and this Town in my tenure here. Chief Sansom told the Journal Inquirer "Achieving Accreditation helps safeguard the integrity of this Department and ensures consistent delivery of high quality public safety services. It's a mark of excellence." In our experience as line Officers it's done just the opposite while burdening us with unnecessary policies and requirements that do nothing to better our performance. We implore Chief Sansom, do the right thing, invest in your Department and your employees before you burn this organization down to a smoking heap. But hey, I guess it'll at least be an Accredited smoking heap, right?

HR Director Santiago Malave Out? UPDATED

One of our members noticed today that the job of Human Resources Director had been posted a week ago on the Town's website, you can find the posting at this link. Though we haven't seen any confirmation, we can only assume this means current HR Director Santiago Malave, who's at the center of the current Sergeant test scandal, and previously the Fire Department promotional exam scandal, is on his way out.

The timing of his departure is intriguing since we're less than a week a way from a hearing in Superior Court where we will argue for the forced release of the evaluator notes and score sheets from the Sergeant's exam that he's been fighting tooth and nail to keep hidden. Of course he could be leaving for any number of reasons, perhaps he's jumping ship before the documents come out and reveal something he or his subordinates did, or the Mayor could be forcing him out, or maybe he just found a better job elsewhere that'll pay him more than the $105,622 salary East Hartford gives him.

Either way Mr. Malave's potential departure is a great thing for our Union and every other Town Union. Aside from his botching of multiple promotional exams, he has acted as nothing more than a rubber stamp for the Chief's decisions during the grievance process where he's supposed to be a neutral arbiter. During my involvement with the Union since 2014 Mr. Malave has never once sided with our Union in any of his Step 2 grievance decisions, instead agreeing with the Chief every time. We've appealed almost all of his rulings to the Labor Board which has overturned Malave's decisions one hundred percent of the time. That's right, every single decision he's ruled on that we've appealed has been overturned. This includes one ruling where he told me to my face after the hearing that he agreed with the Union's position, but then issued his ruling in favor of the Town because I assume he was afraid to go against the Chief of Police.

Mr. Malave's refusal to grant a fair and impartial hearing has wasted hundreds of hours and tens of thousands of dollars of both taxpayer and Union funds by forcing us to take grievances before the Labor Board that could have easily been resolved at the HR level had he done his job properly. We can only hope that whoever replaces him will do the job correctly and give the Unions a fair hearing when we go before him or her so we're not constantly running over to Wethersfield. It would be a huge plus if they know how to run a promotional exam without getting dragged to Court too.

UPDATE: We're hearing Malave is out mid-January before the decision from Superior Court should come down. The line we're hearing from the Admin/Town Hall is that this departure has been planned for at least a year. Of course this makes no sense at all, if you know a critical Department head is on his way out for a year, why would you wait until one month before his departure to post for his job? Don't you think they'd want ample time for qualified candidates to apply, and be interviewed and vetted before the spot goes vacant rather than doing it at the last minute? File that one under "not buying it."

December Meeting

Our December Meeting will be on Thursday the 19th at 1630 at the usual place. We're doing it a bit earlier in the month due to the holidays. I don't think we'll have much new business on the agenda so if you have something you'd like to bring up during Open Floor this would be a good meeting to do that.

The Dumpster Fire Formerly Known as Internal Affairs

We've done a lot of writing on this blog about the mess the Sergeant's test has become, but unfortunately that's not the only mess EHPD has to offer these days. One of the complaints we hear most these days is about the conduct of Internal Affairs. I know for people outside the Department you're probably thinking it's typical for Cops to complain about IA, after all they're the ones who investigate us for alleged wrongdoing. But that's not what's got our members upset, instead it's about what IA isn't doing. Unfortunately over the last few years under our current Administration, our IA Division has been used to protect certain individuals by burying investigations, or just not doing them at all.

We've seen, and continue to see internal complaints against certain employees for various policy violations not being investigated fully, witnesses not being interviewed, and eventually completely tossed off to the side as "unfounded." Now this isn't because the guys in IA are incompetent or don't know how to investigate, because they do. In fact they demonstrate that when they get a complaint against an employee who isn't one of the "chosen ones" who merits special treatment. In those cases the investigation gets done and if it finds something, discipline gets handed out, just like the system is supposed to work. And if they really don't like the guy, they'll even go do things like pull security camera footage and dispatch recordings, interview witness after witness, pull phone and fax records, omit exculpatory evidence, and anything else they can think of to build a case even if it just results in a written reprimand.

That's the issue, it's not the punishment being handed out, but the extreme and obvious disparity in how investigations are handled for certain individuals compared to the rest of us. Perhaps it's who you know, where you came from, who you go to "Thirsty Thursday" with, or play basketball with on the weekends that decides whether you'll get a free pass or the full monte. Whatever the reason is, I think we can all agree it's wrong, and it needs to stop.

I'm not putting the blame on the Sergeant and Lieutenant assigned to IA, I think they're both respectable guys who want to do their jobs the right way. But they don't get to call the shots, they don't get to decide who gets investigated and who doesn't, and they don't get to decide the discipline handed out. Those decisions get made by the Chief and his Deputies, so they're responsible for the current state of IA. This isn't just "taking care of the good ol' boys," we're getting to the point where it's looking like flat out corruption, and it's not something anyone wearing a badge should stand for.

Our Union can't force the Administration to conduct their IA's properly, that's their responsibility. However the one thing we can do is make sure that everyone gets the same treatment, regardless of who they know upstairs. So every time IA has made an investigation disappear or whitewashed it for one of their chosen ones, we've been quietly making note of it. And now those cases have become the new standard. However they were handled for their buddies, that's how they're going to have to be handled for everyone else. And we'll take those cases to the Labor Board and let the Chief explain to them why two people are being treated differently.

We don't want excessive discipline, and we don't want micromanagement, but we do need to have some basic standards for conduct. That million dollar Accreditation certificate is worth about as much as the used up urinal cakes in the patrol bathroom if we're going to allow allies of the Administration to flout the rules at will with no repercussions.