GROVE CITY

Members of Grove City council's police and fire committee met Aug. 8 to discuss how it can prevent the borough's police budget from going into the red before the end of the year.

As of July 31, police spending was at 63 percent, rather than at 58 percent, said Councilman George Pokrant.

The department took an unexpected hit after Chief Richard Jazwinski took a leave of absence in May to receive treatment for a medical condition. Part-time police have had to pull extra shifts to make up for the loss, which is using up overtime.

Although the chief hoped to return to work by July, the committee projected that the borough would be $30,000 in debt if Jazwinski couldn't return for the rest of the year.

Mayor Bruce Bennett, who heads the police department, said he was "going crazy over the budget. There's talk of cutting things, but there's absolutely nothing there."

Assistant Chief Dean Osborne, who is acting as chief while Jazwinski is recovering, said it takes 17,056 hours a year to cover shifts.

The D.A.R.E. program, state training, vacations and holidays brings that number up to 18,976 hours a year, he said.

His and Jazwinski's salaries are at the 58 percent average, while the full-time patrolmen are at 59 percent in hourly pay for the year.

However, the part-time officers are at 79 percent of their hourly pay "without sick time," Osborne said. There's also another 63 days of vacation time not yet turned in.

Another issue is that criminal hearings police must attend don't always fall within their schedules, creating a need for more overtime.

Court dates cannot be manipulated by police to accommodate the schedules, Osborne said. Furthermore, "the contract prohibits me from rescheduling officers' hours," he said.

Bennett added that he did not realize until February there was not enough money put aside to cover the police budget this year.

Councilman Bill Limberg brought up a long-time discussion about putting one officer on slower shifts to decrease costs, rather than having two officers.

"We're scratching and scraping each month to worry about shifts. I can say that two men are not enough," Osborne said. For Grove City's population, it should have 15 full-time officers instead of half that amount, he added.

The assistant chief added that crime goes up when there's less of a police presence a community. To be on one-man shifts "are not safe for the officers," he added.

As it stands, "We don't always make arrests, but there's a lot going on behind the scenes," Osborne said. Good response time for Grove City officers falls into that, at about three minutes per call, he said. Pine Township must rely on state police for coverage, which could take hours, depending on the need.

Bennett believed the police have gotten "a bad rap" over money issues that other departments in the borough have not.

"It's put a sour taste in everyone's mouth," he said. "Yet in working with them the past year (as mayor), I see they don't have anything."

Limberg admitted that police going into arbitration the past couple of contracts has angered some members of council. He added that council also feels it has to keep up the pay of other departments in line with the police's increases.

Bennett said the police budget has decreased the last few years. "They're manning 1,052 shifts in a year. Public works (for example) has 245 shifts a year," he said.

Plus, the borough budget shows the costs to run the force in concrete figures. Other departments are paid by several funds in the borough that are hard to calculate into one number.

"Police department wages are probably a bit higher, but public works (for example) has 11 people and you have no way of finding it in the budget," Bennett said.

Osborne also pointed out that the borough has "passed on hundreds of thousands of dollars" in grant money which could have paid for more police personnel, he said.

The borough did not wish to act on one grant because it would be required to hire full-time officers, Limberg added. "We would be stuck with them."

Yet, certain part-time officers that would have fallen under that program ended up being hired full-time anyway, Osborne said. "And they're still here."

Pokrant acknowledged that Jazwinski's illness was a special circumstance this year that couldn't have been foreseen. "How can you hold the department hostage for the chief's impact?" he said.

And having a projected $30,000 deficit if he doesn't return by the end of the year isn't written in stone either, said Borough Manager Terry Farren.

"We're not going to come up with $30,000 anywhere else in the budget (now)," he said. But, the overall budget can still balance by the end of the year if certain expenses aren't used in other departments.

The committee took Farren's recommendation to keep a close eye on the budget and hold outside expenditures at bay as much as possible to keep it in the black.