The Greensboro City Council is once again considering providing Greensboro police officers with take home police cars – but “considering” is the key word.
At the City Council budget work session on Tuesday, May 25, the council finally got around to looking at some numbers.
Financial and Administrative Department Interim Director Marlene Druga presented estimates of the cost to the city for providing the Police Department with 100 additional vehicles over a five-year period. The estimates ranged from $1.4 million in Year 1 for 20 vehicles to $2.7 million in Year 5 for 100 vehicles.
City Councilmember Yvonne Johnson asked if other cities had seen a reduction in crime after they implemented a take home car program.
Greensboro Police Chief Brian James said that the cities in our immediate vicinity, Winston-Salem and High Point, have both had take home cars for over 20 years, so it would be difficult to make any comparison.
Councilmember Sharon Hightower expressed concern that too many take home police cars would be going to the northern part of town and not enough to East Greensboro.
Councilmember Justin Outling asked if this was the best use of city resources to reduce crime.
Councilmember Nancy Hoffmann said, “I don’t see any particular benefit.”
James said that it would save the Police Department a “tremendous number of man hours” that are now spent at the beginning of the shift with police officers looking for their assigned car and then transferring all their equipment to that car.
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “The officers I’ve talked to think it is a huge benefit.”
She said that the take home car “becomes their mobile office. They can set it up like they want it and it makes them more effective.”
Vaughan added, “We are surrounded by communities that have take home cars. There must be a benefit to it.”
James said that Greensboro had been considering take home cars since 2005, and he added that it extended the life of a patrol car because they are not being driven seven days a week, sometimes as much as 20 hours a day.
Hey city council geniuses, it does not really matter if your take home car program reduces crime or focuses on a certain part of town, or that it’s expensive and difficult to implement. What matters is that literally every other agency around us has a take home car program while GPD does not. If you want to attract top tier police applicants, you must be competitive with the surrounding agencies. They have a benefit to offer applicants that GPD does not. When you look at total packages of what each agency has to offer, GPD ends up near the bottom of the list because they are middle of the road on pay, benefits etc. and fail to have a take home car to offer.
I guess the real question is, does the city council actually want GPD to have top tier employees? Seems like the answer is a resounding “No”.
To address some of their other nonsense… I mean questions.
Hoffman, the benefit to the officer is a savings of time and money. If an officer has to drive 15 miles to work, that’s 30 miles a day round trip that they no longer have to pay for out of pocket. That’s roughly 5,000 miles a year that they are NOT putting onto their own vehicle. So it’s a massive wear and tear savings on their personal car.
The officer is also immediately ready for work the second they get into the patrol car in their driveway. They could literally drive up the block and start answering calls without the need to drive to the station, find a car, load the car, and then drive back out to wherever they are assigned to work. That is a ton of time wasted every day, which has to be repeated at the end of every shift. Drive back to the station, unload the car, turn the car back in, then go home.
Looking at home buying assistance, well that’s a great program for some rookie, but it does nothing for your veteran officers who most likely already own a home. How about just offering more pay? As to where they live, well that’s their business and not really relevant to the discussion. If you want to offer an incentive for an officer to live in a challenged neighborhood, go ahead, but that incentive should not be tied to a take home car program. Why? Because we get back to looking at how we stack up with our neighbors. They do not restrict their program beyond requiring that the officer live inside the city, so neither can Greensboro. The more restrictive you make the program, the less competitive GPD will be.
As far as extending the life of the vehicle, well thanks to the mafia style lease program that the city has, that point is largely moot. GPD has to pay a monthly lease on every car they own back to the City of Greensboro’s mechanic pool, commonly referred to as “Patton” because it is located on Patton Avenue. I think a patrol car’s monthly lease runs just under $700 a month (and that’s on top of the car’s purchase price). So that’s $700 a month forever, for each car in the fleet that GPD has to give back to the city to pay the city’s mechanics to fix the city’s cars. If a take home car’s life gets extended from 3 years to 6 years, then GPD has paid Patton and extra $25,000 just to keep using that same car. Now I don’t know about you, but spending $25k just to keep using my same car does not seem like a savings. Sure there are maintenance costs, gas, etc, but $25k worth? Please.
The whole Patton “lease” issue could easily be the main wrench that gums up thoughts of expansion. I bet that if you looked into how other cities handle their program, you would find that the police department is allowed to use their vehicle budget to address their vehicle needs as they see fit. In Greensboro, that budget is locked and preassigned to go to Patton. It is a massive shell game and money dump that binds up a huge portion of GPD’s funds every year. Greensboro needs to reassess how their own vehicle fleet system works and seriously consider allowing the various departments to seek private contractors to handle vehicle needs.
Alternatively, Council members, you can let the excuses continue while GPD becomes a ghost town. If you keep it up, soon your city will follow suit. Don’t forget that GPD is losing about 60 officers a year and only gaining about 30 right now. So your plan is to become marginally competitive…in five years? Let’s see…net loss of 150 officers. Great idea guys. See you at the ballot box!
What difference does it make if the cars go to “north” Greensboro or “east” Greensboro? It goes where the officer lives! Hightower is the biggest racist buffoon in the world. She can tie the race card to anything. What a joke of a public official. Is there anyway she can be recalled or can we invoke the 26th amendment for her? It does not take a person with a lot of brains to figure out that she is not fit to serve.
Hey,Council Governing Elites-the police should have their cars with them at home.and if most Police dont live in East Greensboro-perhaps you geniuses should find out why that is true.If it is.
It is a miracle we have any police at all in this town.Outling- that wasnt even a good question.
Get with it people.
I grew up in east Greensboro. You won’t see me back over there for any reason. Not shopping. Not working. Not driving through. My family still lives there and they have to beg me to visit. 15 minutes from me and I won’t go unless it’s Christmas or a birthday.
These are the same clowns that make sure the ultra liberal Interactive Resource Center has City owned vehicles. Absolutely amazing isn’t it?
It is amazing Just Saying. More self dealing to a council member who ironically wants to open an investigation into GPD just for the general purpose that she talks to people who don’t feel safe around police. Ok, then do not provide them police response.
Once again Hightower shows her ignorance, racist view and lack of respect for the citizens of Greensboro.
Outling and council is giving councilwoman Johnson $900 thousand dollars of our money with NO accountability the best use of city resources to reduce crime?
Clearly solution is to give the Cure Violence “interveners” take-home cars. Better yet, it won’t cost the city anything. If they see a car they like, they can just take it home no questions asked.