Auburn needs to cut spending on city police department

But there is something that threatens to undermine the town’s success if it isn’t fixed soon — the crushing cost of Auburn’s police department could devastate the town’s finances if that problem isn’t addressed in the next year or so.

At the end of its last fiscal year, nearly 50 percent of the town’s expenses were in public safety spending. And while the city has cut some spending, it has barely touched police department expenses despite three years of red ink.

This isn’t an unusual problem for small towns, especially growing small towns. Public safety, mainly police, often become a mainstay of growing communities. Fear drives a lot of that; fear of crime, fear of traffic and fear of change.

But the ballooning costs of police departments can get out of hand very quickly. A lot of other towns have had this happen. The City of Hoschton disbanded its police department last year; the small town simply couldn’t afford it. Other area departments have also been cut back due to the expense involved.

There are a couple of reasons this happens. First, small town police departments often cultivate a sense of fear when threatened with budget cuts. That happened in nearby Hoschton where citizens were told by police officials the community would be overrun by gangs and crime if the department was cut. (That, of course, didn’t happen.)

Second, police department officials always want more. They want the latest law enforcement toys, the newest cars with the fanciest lights, the newest guns, the best of everything. Budget management isn’t a strong suit of most small town police officials; they’re cops being asked to manage people and money, two skill sets they often don’t have.

Finally, most small town city council officials hesitate to question police spending. It’s hard to say, for example, how many officers a town should have per shift. Many city council members don’t want to be perceived as anti-cop, so they just don’t ask questions.

But in Auburn’s situation, it’s time to start asking questions. The town spent $3.2 million last year, around $900,000 more than it had in revenue. Of the town’s expenses, nearly half was for public safety, mostly police spending.

Think of that in the context of a personal budget. If you spend half of your income on housing costs, then you will be very constrained in your other spending. There will be less money for car payments, travel, utilities, eating out, etc. Anytime one expense dominates a budget, other spending takes a hit.

With the recession still depressing property values and sales tax income, Auburn simply can’t afford to spend $1.5 million a year on law enforcement unless it wants to curtail all of its other spending. Anytime a town spends half of its resources in any one department, something’s wrong. Law enforcement spending should be no more than 33 percent of a city’s budget.

Auburn has been able to ride out the recession so far because it had built up a huge reserve fund of $4.1 million at the end of FY2007. But each year for the past three years, the town has had to eat into those reserves to make up for declining revenues.

Today, Auburn’s reserves are at $1.9 million, still a healthy amount considering the size of its budget, but it cannot continue to live off reserves year after year.

At some point within the next 18-months, Auburn will have to either raise its tax rate, or shrink the size of its police force by cutting around $500,000 from its law enforcement spending.

Auburn has set an ambitious agenda for redevelopment and revitalization. But the ability to do those things will be constrained unless the town gets its police budget under control.

The numbers are what they are. The cost of law enforcement in Auburn is sucking the life out of the town’s budget.

That spending simply can’t be sustained at the current level.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.