Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter asked for an update on the Greensboro Police Department (GPD) at the Tuesday, March 21 City Council meeting.
Abuzuaiter noted that at the Feb. 21 meeting, she had asked for information on compensation and benefits and was still looking for a response.
City Manager Tai Jaiyeoba said, “I don’t have anything other than we are still looking at it and looking at what we can do now, what we can bring you prior to the budget.”
Abuzuaiter said, “I hope we can get something moving rather quickly.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “I’d like to ask where we are on take-home police cars.”
Assistant City Manager Trey Davis said that of the 20 additional police patrol cars that the City Council authorized in December 2021, not a single one is in use by the GPD. Davis said that the city did have the cars and that 10 had been sent to an outside vendor to be upfitted.
Councilmember Tammi Thurm said that on her last ride along the police officer she rode with suggested that every car the GPD had did not have to be fully outfitted to chase criminals and transport them to jail. Thurm asked that if some police cars were just used for transportation, why they all had to be some kind of special order.
There was no answer to that question.
Vaughan also said that she had done some research going to the employment ads for High Point, Burlington, Winston-Salem, Guilford County Sheriff’s Department, Charlotte, Durham and Raleigh.
According to the chart prepared by Vaughan, all the law enforcement agencies she looked at provided take-home police cars with the exception of Greensboro.
Abuzuaiter noted that some of the benefits offered by the GPD are not included in the advertisement to recruit officers to the GPD.
Pitiful. Another council SNAFU. You voted for them….enjoy.
Can anyone ‘splain this?
…..and the rest of Greensboro noted that city council are a bunch of dummies because they have talking about this for months and months, yet nothing is being done.
You idiots supposedly run this town and can spend money on any self serving project that one of your pals brings to you. How about spending it on something that matters?
Step 1, make a motion.
Step 2, vote on the motion.
Done.
So what’s new here? This Council still has bond money from 6 and 7 years ago they haven’t spent. Also, the TAKE HOME police vehicle issue has been going on for years. Unless it’s a pet project for one of the chosen few (re-elected by you) it will never happen.
The citybshould hire me as an expensive outside consultant to look in to their recruiting and retention problems
WTF? The questions they asked have all been answered. At this point any questions asked by council members to the city managers are political theater. And thanks mayor for doing “research” about the cars. These facts have been known for years. About 20 years ago a captain did a study of vehicles and getting take home cars for the department. Just dust that off, change the date and the prices and move forward.
Why is it acceptable for a city council member to ask a month ago for information on compensation and the city manager to say they are still looking at it? Word on the street is that somewhere between 10-20 officers are leaving in the near future. Keep stalling and acting like this is not happening. Keep dragging your feet as the attrition grows. Keep finding it acceptable that your management team seems to never provide direct answers in an acceptable amount of time.
It’s time to look for the next City Man ASAP!
How are they 147 officers down and don’t have cars? How are they sending all these people back to patrol with nothing to drive?
They have always purchased patrol vehicles for one rotation. (4 on, 4 off). The patrol vehicles go through a process at the mafia like Patton Garage. The PD “leases” their cars from Patton, another city department. They send them outside the city to be upfitted for patrol. That’s why the cars take so long to make it to the street. Cars are also not available due to crashes, maintenance, ect. Greensboro is the ONLY agency to not have 1 officer to 1 car. Mayor, you didn’t have to do any research. You have known that for years. Stop the political theater. Just sit up in the dais and say we as a council are not going to support competitive pay, benefits, and vehicles. Quit dicking around, admit you (and the chief and his assistant chiefs) are not going to do anything to stop the bleeding so the newer officers can take their training and move on. The older officers with any sense will retire as soon as they can. We don’t need pay studies and all that BS. We need you as a council and as chiefs to get a plan and f-ing do something. This chief was hired in December. It’s almost April. Where is a recruiting and retention plan?
I would rather the people in charge be honest. Their actions speak louder than any of their fake BS at meetings. The whole state knows GPD sucks. The whole City government is a joke beginning with the most incompetent Council I have witnessed. And not just with the PD. With every facet of running the city and the services that the outrageous tax rate pays for.
Since January 1,2023, the GPD has lost 17 sworn officers to resignations, firings and retirements. 13 sworn officers have just went into field training which takes roughly 4-5 months. So if the average sworn officer lost a month is 5, then in 5 months that’s another 25 sworn officers which in simple math is 42 officers total for the year, yet GPD will only get 13 officers. So that leaves GPD short 29 Officers on top of the 120 they are already short. So by August 2023, GPD will be down 150 officers which equates to 25% of manpower down. The main question that should be asked is what is GPD doing to retain sworn officers that they have invested over $100,000 to train and equip. More quick math for council, 29x100k= $2.9 million, not a very good steward of the city’s money.