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Sylva’s take-home police cars come under question again
By Carey King
The fact that Sylva’s police chiefs and detectives take squad cars home saves money and time, Chief Jeff Jamison told the town’s public safety committee June 14.
The committee met in response to complaints made during the June 3 town board meeting by citizens who said police cars are rarely seen within Sylva’s limits.
Though the practice of keeping cars after-hours is not covered in the town’s personnel manual, Chief Jamison, Assistant Chief Tammy Hooper, and detectives Shannon Ashe and John Buchanan use their vehicles while off-duty. That action replaces the written policy of awarding detectives call-back and stand-by pay, Jamison said.
“The detectives are not getting as much money to take home, but they would rather have the take-home car,” Jamison said.
Under Sylva police policy, detectives should be paid for five hours of work each week they’re on stand-by, a sum of about $67, Jamison said. Ashe and Buchanan rotate weeks of stand-by duty, he said.
While on stand-by, the detectives are called out an average of 20 times a year, for about 4 hours each time. According to town policy, employees must be paid two hours’ wages for each time they’re called to work outside of normal hours – an average tally of $106.72 for each call-back.
According to those figures, following written policy would have the town paying the detectives $5,484.40 for extra time worked, Jamison said.
However, since the police department has allowed detectives and chiefs to take cars home, the detectives have forfeited that pay schedule and instead agree to a standard $50 for each week they serve on stand-by, Jamison said. They do not receive call-back pay, he said.
In return, Sylva pays the cost of the extra fuel, oil changes and tires needed to maintain cars for the extra miles to employees’ homes, he said.
Basing his calculations on a fuel economy of 14 miles per gallon, a price of $2 for a gallon of gas, and the round-trip miles detectives must drive from their homes to town limits – for Ashe, that’s 10, and for Buchanan, 26 – the cars and the standardized take-home pay costs the town $4,240.36 annually, a savings of $1,244.04, Jamison said.
According to the written policy, the chief and assistant chief are not eligible for stand-by or call-back pay since they’re always on duty, Jamison said. The additional cost for their cars – based on round trips of 6 miles to Jamison’s home and 12 miles to Hooper’s – is $559.60 a year, he said.
The total of $4,799.96 the town pays for the vehicle arrangement beats the $5,484.40 Sylva citizens would have to pay if the town followed written policy, Jamison said.
“We’re actually coming out better,” said town Manager Richard McHargue.
Even more important than the dollars saved is the minutes spared when the chiefs and detectives are needed, committee Chairman Maurice Moody said. Committee member Eldridge Painter agreed.
“If you need a policeman, you don’t need him to spend 10 minutes changing cars,” Moody said. Were the take-home procedure not in place, the chiefs and detectives would have to drive to the police station, transfer vehicles and then respond to the situation, he said.
Take-home cars are common in the police departments of many surrounding towns, Jamison noted. Franklin, Maggie Valley and Brevard loan vehicles not only to chiefs and detectives, but to all full-time officers, he said.
“It’s standard police procedure,” Jamison said.
However, two town board members disagree with the chief’s calculations. The two, Danny Allen and Ray Lewis – both former police officers – aren’t on the public safety committee, but were present for the meeting.
“It’s wrong. Those figures are wrong. Even his mileage is wrong,” Allen later said.
Along with Lewis, Allen contends that Jamison should base his statistics on the distance traveled from the chiefs’ and detectives’ homes to the police station, not town limits, since the station is their place of employment. Lewis has driven each route, and says that stipulation adds 3.6 miles to Jamison’s round-trip drive and about 5 miles each to Hooper’s, Ashe’s and Buchanan’s.
The figures should also take into account miles driven to the officers’ second jobs, both say. In addition to serving as police chief, Jamison is employed with Wal-Mart as a security guard, Lewis said.
“That means that taxpayers aren’t getting their money’s worth,” Allen said. Instead, he said, the police should follow a policy similar to that of Sylva’s volunteer fire department – a plan that requires each firefighter to live within the town’s fire district. Police officers should be required to live a minimum of five miles from town, Allen said.
When former police Chief Harold McMahan implemented the take-home car procedure in the mid-1990s, the policemen who kept cars lived much closer to Sylva, in Dillardtown and on Fisher Creek, Allen said.
“If (the current chiefs and detectives) lived closer to the city limits, it would be a different story,” Allen said.
In addition, though detectives have given up call-back pay in order to take the cars, they still may be billing the town for comp time when they’re called in to work, Lewis said.
Both also questioned the number of times Sylva officers are called from town to assist the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office.
“If they want to enforce the laws of the county, let them go work for the county,” Allen said.
The police department is currently in a budget crunch and is having to put two patrol officers in one car at night to save on gas, Allen said.
“I’m not against the police department, but I’m against their policies and procedures,” he said. “The town board’s got to do some rethinking on this.”
Issues surrounding police policies have surfaced repeatedly over the past few years, committee Chairman Moody noted.
“Some people have their pet peeves and evidently (police policies) are one someone has,” he said.
Three of Sylva’s five board members are in support of the take-home car policy and Moody will make that report to the town board during its July meeting, he said.
According to McHargue, a written addition to the Sylva personnel manual concerning the take-home cars is being considered.
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