Residents packed the Jenkintown Borough Hall Wednesday to hear the results of a cost-benefit analysis from a state agency on its police department.
For supporters of keeping the local police department as is, it wasn’t good news.
“These results should prompt a critical assessment of whether the current local police operation is sustainable,” the report concluded.
Retired police chiefs Gerald Simpson and Joseph Kirschner presented the results of the Department of Community and Economic Development (DCED) study that showed Jenkintown spends more on its police department than comparable municipalities.
They looked at total municipal budgets and costs for the police department and the per capital costs per police. Most communities across Pennsylvania are paying 18 to 20 percent of their budgets for their police departments. In Montgomery County, the average is 19.6 percent. Jenkintown is paying 25.4 percent, said Simpson.
Most towns in the Delaware Valley have a $6.5 million budget, while Jenkintown’s is $7.6 million or 16.9 percent higher. Most municipalities in the area have a total police budget of $1.5 million. Jenkintown’s is $1.9 million. Of that personnel costs are $1.4 million and $1.7 million respectively, the report showed.
However, Jenkintown officials said the town has $662,000 in additional annual costs for its police department for retirement and health insurance not listed in the public safety budget line item.
That raises police costs to 34 percent of the budget, or 40 percent higher per capita than the state average.
“Don’t shoot the messenger,” Simpson said. “These are challenging times but not unique times.” Other towns are facing similar problems, he said.
The council took no action, and the agency representatives said they will leave it up to the local community to decide what to do with the findings. Residents had opposed a previous proposal to disband the borough’s police department and seek services from a neighboring town.
About 4,700 people live in the borough, although the population increases with workers during the day. The DCED studied incidents reported and the number of officers needed to handle those and suggested that Jenkintown officials might want to reduce the number of officers from 11 to four plus a chief.
“When considering the cost per police officer, which is $175,773.00, and accounting for a staffing excess of 3 police units, we can identify a budget overage of $527,319.00 in the Jenkintown police budget. If the adjusted figure includes the additional financial data, the cost for overstaffing is $707,867.00,” the report said.
Jenkintown could also use a “hybrid model,” sharing some police services with one of its neighbors. The town could also decrease other services, increase taxes, engage in stricter management practices, and negotiate with labor for relief or givebacks.
Simpson suggested officials and residents think of the borough’s budget as a business model.
“Is that model sustainable?” he asked. He suggested they need long-term planning. “It’s a 10-to-20-year question. That’s a question for this council,” he said.
Councilwoman Deborra Sines Pancoe said police costs have been a problem for several years. In “2018, 2019, we were talking about cutting back then. We knew we were in trouble.”
There were problems of overstaffing, she said.
“We had a canine program costing us a lot of money. We disbanded that program. In 2021, we put together a police working group. When our long-standing police chief had to retire, we had an outstanding local candidate. As a council, we want to have a safe community…We’re facing a fiscal crisis,” she said.
Resident Regina Bachman pushed back.
“We’re the lowest paid police department in the county, how do we come out the highest [in costs]?” Bachman asked, noting Jenkintown officers have been working since December 2023 without a contract. She believes the numbers in the DCED report are wrong, that police expenses are $1.37 million not $1.9 million.
“You said 11 police officers,” she said. “We’re down to 10. Officer Jaworski retired.” She also noted the borough is getting “a lot more businesses,” including a new Giant supermarket. “Has that been factored in?”
Simpson told her, “I don’t know about your wage rates. There are a lot of variables. It comes down to economy of scale.”
Jenkintown Police Chief Tom Scott said many issues existed when he took over in 2022. For example, there is a contract obligation that allows officers to sell back sick time, which amounts to “a $70,000 hit to the budget,” he said. And officers who work the day after Thanksgiving get paid at a double time rate.
“I’m concerned for my neighbors,” another woman said. Now the “biggest crime is unlocked cars being rifled through. We don’t have bad crime. I feel it is because of our officers.”
Simpson said, “There’s been a lot of change in law enforcement…It’s never been more complicated. It is a really, really challenging space. It is, frankly, your responsibility to make sure this is sustainable.”
