The Police Commission plans to hire an experienced consultant to conduct an independent assessment of the Department of Police Services’ operations, following up on a promise made by many new members elected to the commission last year to scrutinize the town’s department and its operations.

As a first step, the Police Commission formed an ad hoc police study committee and charged it to develop a draft request for proposals (RFP). Seated on this ad hoc committee are Police Commission Chairman Adam Stuart and police commissioners A. Donald Cooper and Bryan Coppes. Also on the committee are Board of Finance members Barry O’Nell and Breck Lindley, First Selectman Carl Fortuna, Jr., and Police Chief Michael Spera.

The new police study committee met for the first time to review and discuss a draft RFP for the police operations study on Sept. 7.

The draft the committee reviewed is a synthesis of three past police study RFPs issued by other U.S. towns and cities. The sample RFPs were sent to Fortuna by staff at the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM). Fortuna developed a draft RFP sample for Old Saybrook by blending elements of the others towns’ drafts.

“I asked CCM for sample RFPs and got some from out of state—from Canada, from Pennsylvania, and from California. This type of top-down, bottom-up study is rarely done. It’s typically not what a community does with a police department unless there is a pending financial issue such as a merger of departments or a financial crisis,” said Fortuna. “We had difficulty finding any Connecticut one done in the past 15 years.

“Now it’s up to the ad hoc committee to evaluate the draft RFP and revise it as they see fit. I would imagine they could arrive at an end result fairly quickly,” said Fortuna. “When the committee and the commission are ready, we’ll release the RFP for bids. The committee will do the interviews. If funds are appropriated for the study and a contractor chosen, the firm will operate under the auspices of the Police Commission.”

The Draft RFP

In this first RFP draft, the consultant’s scope of work would be “to evaluate the Police Department’s existing staffing and organizational structure and processes and provide findings, conclusions, and if warranted, recommendations. The desired outcome for this project is to determine an optimal, cost-effective organization, which is inclusive of the following components: staffing levels, assignments, effective use of civilians, volunteers, professional, and sworn staff, deployment schedules and police and procedures...”