SHELBY, Ohio – There is a symbol in law enforcement known as the “thin blue line,” representing the law enforcement officers who stand between the public and the criminals. In the city of Shelby, that thin blue line is particularly slim as the Shelby Police Department continues to make cuts to accommodate a diminishing General Fund.
It’s a process the police department began long ago, according to Chief Charlie Roub. More than five years ago Roub met with Finance Director Bob Lafferty to talk about cutbacks, where Lafferty told Roub exactly what he expected to happen in the coming years.
“What he told me at that time is exactly what did happen,” recalled Roub. “State funds, local government funds were cut, he anticipated that it was going to continue and that there would be further cuts in different areas, and that’s money we relied on to help us with the General Fund.
“Safety forces are the biggest drain on a General Fund that you have – personnel cost is huge, and for the safety forces that’s where that money comes from,” Roub continued. “That’s just a large part of that, and what do you do about it? You can’t do anything because you can’t take the money from someplace else. It costs money to protect people. Everything we do on an everyday basis, that money comes from the General Fund.”
In November, Shelby residents voted against a 0.2 percent income tax levy for three years for the purpose of maintaining safety forces. A 0.2 percent income tax would have produced approximately $435,000 annually that would be expended specifically for police and fire department line items from the General Fund. At present, the police and fire departments represent 75 percent of the total General Fund budget. The levy failed by a 59.09/40.91 percent margin.
Currently the Shelby Police Department employs a total of 16 officers including Roub, and three dispatchers. According to Roub, more often than not the department operates at a minimum staffing level of two officers. To date the department has handled approximately 12,000 calls for service, and in a city of nearly 9,400 residents Roub stated his officers are spread quite thin.
“If you take a look at the FBI statistics, with our call volume and population ideally we should have 24 to 25 officers, and that’s based on national statistics,” said Roub. “We do well with what we have but it would be great to have more, it would relieve a lot of the stress we have on our officers now, and believe it or not it cuts back on overtime a lot.”
Roub explained at any given time three or four officers are scheduled, but due to factors like paid leave or sickness that leaves one or two officers short on a 12-hour shift. Vacation time is not something Roub is eager to cut due to the decrease in morale it would cause.
“You have people planning their summer vacation and if you turn around and tell them they can’t have the time off, you’re going to get nothing out of them,” said Roub. “You either pay them because you can’t let them take their vacation, or you let them have the time off and pay somebody to fill the position. There has to be a balance there, sometimes it works for you and sometimes it doesn’t.”
A shortage in staff means Shelby officers work harder to keep up on their responsibilities. Roub explained calls are prioritized by order or importance; in a priority one call where a person’s life or property is in danger, an officer has the responsibility to leave a priority four call like unlocking someone’s car in order to respond. Still, simply responding to calls is only part of an officer’s duties.
“When you take people away and all you have time to do is take reports and you don’t have time to investigate, that crime just continues,” said Roub. “The longer it goes on, the harder it is to catch up with those folks because the information gets stale, its value as evidence goes away. It’s a progressive thing, and if we can stay on top of it in any way by maintaining the numbers we have now that would be great.”
This year alone, Roub stated the police department has helped to reduce spending in the General Fund by an estimated $47,000 while still initiating two new programs in the last two years. Through an agreement with Pioneer Career and Technology Center the department placed a School Resource Officer at the school, eliminating hours the department used to spend responding to complaints at Pioneer and allowing for 75 percent of the officer’s wages and benefits to be paid for by the school. Shelby also currently has an officer serving with METRICH that has helped relieve a lot of stress on drug investigations and taken down a number of local dealers.
With Roub’s upcoming retirement on March 7, 2015 and one other officer eligible to retire in May or June of 2015, Roub expects both of these programs to be eliminated. Any further reduction of staff would also result in the closing of the jail, which has cut jail-housing costs by $70,000 since opening this past August.
“I started as an auxiliary officer in November 1979,” said Roub of his retirement. “There are a lot of people who have been at it longer than me, but the way I planned my life fell right into that. And this is a young guy’s game. I enjoy it, I’m going to miss it, but by the same token it’s time to move on.”
As Roub prepares to leave the Shelby Police Department, his two main concerns for the future are with his officers and the community.
“I don’t want to see anybody face any hardships; I don’t want to see anybody lose their job or get laid off – we all have families, we have bills and mortgages,” said Roub. “And I don’t want anything bad to happen in the community. When you start reducing the numbers in your safety forces, crime goes up. It’s just a natural thing, you have crimes that are committed that don’t get the attention that they would if you had full staffing.
“It doesn’t look real good for this upcoming year,” he said. “Unfortunately there’s not much we can do about that. I wish there was an easy way to fix it, but there really doesn’t appear to be.”
