Middle Police Chief Details Cost of a Cop

COURT HOUSE – “For just pennies a day…”
It’s a phrase normally saved for starving children and homeless pets.
But in Middle Township, for just pennies a day, a cop can walk the beat.
According to Police Chief Christopher Leusner, it costs the average township homeowner about 127 pennies a day to pay for the local police department. That’s $1.27; or about the cost of a small cup of coffee. To put it in a daily perspective, it’s more than $5 less than a pack of smokes.
Leusner based his breakdown costs on the town’s 2010 budget and presented them last week during the April 11 committee meeting. With the township getting ready to approve a 2011 budget that includes a 2.7-cent increase to the tax rate, he wanted homeowners to know where their money goes when it comes to police protection.
“I want to be able to tell the public how much they pay for their police officers,” Leusner said, “a realistic number, something they can relate to.”
Township police account for a significant portion of the budget every year, something the chief readily admits but also staunchly defends.
On “why” the police department remains the largest dollar-sign line item in the spending plan year after year, Leusner pointed to its “labor intensive operation.”
He said while other municipal departments work eight-hour days, five days a week, the police work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And that schedule is a consistent 365 days a year, he said.
“We do not stop,” Leusner said. “At 3 a.m., we have labor costs. That’s us.”
And unlike other departments that might incur a similar labor cost for something like emergency snow removal, Leusner said the police department always has someone working those early-morning hours.
It’s not on a “when-needed” basis, he said. It’s always needed.
“We are around the clock,” he said.
Based on 2010 figures, Leusner worked with the township auditor and administrator to arrive at a number that reflects the police-to-homeowner cost. It accurately shows, he said, how much the average homeowner paid in property taxes last year to fund the police department.
“It’s overall operation, day to day, including the salaries of its officers,” Leusner said.
Using a home assessed a $300,000 and a tax rate of $1.39 per $100 of assessed value, Leusner said 16 cents of the $1.39 went to cover police operations.
So, for that same homeowner, who spent a total of $4,170 in property taxes last year, $465.71 of that money went to the Middle Township Police Department, according to the chief’s figures.
Further breakdown shows the annual $465.71 to equal $38.81 a month or the $1.27 a day.
In 2010, the police department accounted for about $8.5 million of the township’s $21.9 million budget. Of the $8.5 million it took to run the police department, about $5.2 million came from salary and wages.
The department patrols 72 square miles, including the county seat, Leusner said, and protects a year-round population of about 19,000 that surges to 60,000 in the summer. Additionally, he said police are tasked with unique traffic enforcement in a town that serves as a “connector” to various other points at the shore.
On the roads that run through Middle, Leusner said police have to be acutely aware that motorists are consistently moving on Routes 47 and 9, the Garden State Parkway and other corridors to get to different destinations.
According to the department’s 2010 annual report, traffic accidents reached 1,000 for the first time in the township’s history, representing a 10 percent increase over 2009. Likewise, there were over 1,000 total arrests made last year.
Presently, the police department operates with 46 full-time officers, which according to 2010 year-end statistics will be down by one due to a retirement sometime this year. Five Class II officers are also part of the program this year, a first for the community. They will be used to assist with service calls and traffic related issues because state guidelines prohibit them from working on certain crimes above the third degree.