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BOF Approves Police Department Staffing Study; Town Meeting to Come

At a Board of Finance (BOF) meeting on Dec. 5, the board voted six to one to approve a recommendation from the Police Commission to appropriate $98,790 to hire the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) to conduct a study of the police department to help address staffing issues. The move will need to be approved by residents at a town meeting next month that has yet to be scheduled.

In the summer, Old Saybrook Chief of Police Michael Spera gave a presentation to the Police Commission on what he termed a “crisis” facing the department: the staffing level.

At that time, there were 17 officers on the department roster. In the months since the presentation, the staffing level has remained well below the 25 authorized officer level the department aims for.

To remedy the issue, Spera recommended that the town negotiate with the police union to see if proposed incentives like a higher salary or increased benefits would help attract and retain quality officers.

However, before the town agreed to negotiate the proposal, which First Selectman Carl Fortuna said could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, Fortuna said he would like to see a study of the department done to ensure that the proposed incentives would fix the staffing issue.

At the BOF meeting on Dec. 5, the board briefly discussed the issue again before voting to approve the proposal to hire PERF. Only BOF member Eric Dussault voted against the motion.

Dussault said that, in his opinion, a command structure and staffing size assessment for the police department should have been a part of the study.

“It wasn’t clear to me in the proposed scope of work from PERF that that would be done, and, in my opinion, it should be,” Dussault said after the meeting.

“This study should benefit the taxpayers and the officers,” Fortuna said to the Harbor News after the meeting. He also reiterated that he felt a study was called for due to the amount of money requested for the department.

“On behalf of the taxpayers, we need to make sure if we make this investment, that it will stem the flow of officers that we are losing,” Fortuna said.

With the BOF voting in favor of the proposal, the funds still need to be approved by residents at a town meeting. Speaking after the BOF, Fortuna said that the town meeting to approve the funds would be held in January, though an exact date has not been set yet.

At a Police Commission meeting on Oct. 30, the commission unanimously voted to hire PERF over two other proposed consultants due to what the commission members felt was a more comprehensive proposal from PERF.

“PERF’s proposal is to perform an assessment of the entire operations of the OSPD with an eye on the question: why is our department experiencing the level of turnover that it has? That is not to pre-judge any one individual or any one issue,” Police Commission Chairperson Alfred Wilcox explained.

Prior to the vote, Old Saybrook Police Sergeant Ryan Walsh and Master Sergeant Chris DeMarco read a letter into the record outlining concerns the union members had with the study.

Part of the stated concern was PERF’s proposal to interview officers who had left the department, which the union representatives said seemed like an attack on the department and chief.

Wilcox clarified that the proposed study would seek to interview former Old Saybrook Police officers who had left the department in the previous three years and were willing to speak with the consultants. The study would also interview current officers, the chief, and command staff.

“The idea that we have nothing to learn by speaking to these people strikes me as illogical,” Wilcox said.

Members of the BOF and Fortuna stated more than once that they did not mean to show any disrespect to the officers or chief but felt the study was needed before making a substantial investment in the department.

“It will be focused on those that are here and keeping them here,” Fortuna said of the study.

The staffing problem is not a new one in Old Saybrook or, in fact, elsewhere in the state. A 2021 study on the department’s staffing needs noted that a multitude of factors have been affecting staffing levels at police departments across the country, and Old Saybrook has not been immune. When discussing the driving factors of the issue at the Police Commission meeting on July 24, Spera pointed to the current labor market, the fact fewer people are going into policing, which has led to a shortage of police officers, societal factors, and personalities clicking at the department.

Another issue the police union members brought to the attention of the BOF was a mistake that was made in the Town’s Annual Report where the pay for members of the police department was, in some cases, substantially overstated. Fortuna said the mistake was not done on purpose, and a correction had been issued, as well as a statement posted online highlighting the mistake.