City of Piedmont
COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
DATE: June 17, 2024
TO: Mayor and Council
FROM: Rosanna Bayon Moore, City Administrator
SUBJECT: Overview of Staffing Study Approach by Matrix, Inc. for the Piedmont Police Department
RECOMMENDATION
This report is submitted for information purposes only.
BACKGROUND
The purpose of this agenda item is to provide the City Council and community with an introduction to Matrix, Inc., the consultant team selected to perform a staffing study for the City of Piedmont Police Department and the body of work currently in progress, Matrix will present an overview of the firm’s approach and a project update, as well as field questions associated with the project.
This effort is one element of a multi-point plan established in late 2023 to address crime related issues within the City. The staffing study also provides an opportunity to assess how the Police Department currently functions and is organized relative to future increases in housing units, public safety demands and evolving technology. This insight is anticipated to also aid the City as future public safety facility needs are planned.
Matrix describes their project understanding in the following manner:
Project Approach
Task 1 – Project Initiation
In order to conduct the study of the Piedmont Police Department (PPD), the project team will first develop an initial understanding of the department and its service environment, as well as seek input on existing service levels and potential issues from department managers and key stakeholders. This task allows for an opportunity to learn about the unique characteristics, policing programs, and services provided by the department. This process includes:
• Interviews with the City Administrator and elected officials in order to obtain their views on police service issues and improvement opportunities, as well to confirm the goals and objectives of the study.
• Similarly, interview the Chief, command, and supervisory staff to obtain their views on police service issues and improvement opportunities.
• Also reach out to the Piedmont Police Officers’ Association for their views on service and staffing issues.
• Interviews with Human Resources, Finance, Information Technology, and other municipal managers who have important interfaces with the PPD.
This task will involve outreach to PPD staff to understand the functionality of the organization as well as issues from a variety of perspectives.
These initial interviews will focus on determining individual attitudes toward current law enforcement services and organizational considerations, including the following topics:
• Adequacy of existing service levels.
• Responsiveness to community priorities and other service needs. • Perceived gaps in existing service levels, resources, and programs.
The project team will also begin to collect various documents, including departmental goals, vision, and objectives statements, as well as other organizational materials and budgetary documents.
Task 2 – Descriptive Profile of the Police Department
The project team will document its initial understanding of the PPD, its service levels, staffing, and service environment in a descriptive profile. The profile will present the organizational chart, deployment schedules, and a summary of key characteristics and dynamics of the Department and the community. The descriptive profile will detail:
• Departmental goals and objectives.
• Service scope of work for each organizational function. • Organizational structures and reporting relationships. • Current (filled) and authorized staffing levels by classification. • Key responsibilities and duties for each unit, command staff, and unique role within the Department.
• Deployment of field services.
• For administrative and support functions, workloads and service levels, technology in use, and division of responsibility between the City and PPD.
A primary aim of developing the descriptive profile is to provide a foundation for subsequent analysis by ensuring the accuracy of our understanding of key details.
The draft document will be reviewed with PPD, with corrections and revisions being made thereafter.
Task 3 – Analysis of Workloads and Staffing
The project team will develop a comprehensive analysis of staffing needs for every function of the PPD, as well as strategies achieving the best use of existing resources. Different analytical factors and processes will be used to determine staffing needs for each function, as well as strategies for deploying and managing staff.
The analysis will focus on the ability of staffing levels to achieve targeted service levels and support effective operations management, such as:
• Key workload drivers and processes for administrative and support functions. • Are spans of control within targeted ranges for individual functions? • Are controls for overtime usage adequate, and what are the key drivers of overtime by type (e.g., backfill)?
Task 4 – Police Department Organization and Key Management Systems The project team would evaluate departmental organizational structure and management systems with special emphasis on the elements described in the following subtasks. The focus on these project elements would be to identify and make recommendations that could be implemented in the short term (e.g., where collective bargaining or additional funds were not a constraint) or in the long term (possibly because of funding issues).
(1) Community Engagement and Support
Underscoring the need for this assessment are the philosophies and methods for working with the community. This is not a discrete question; rather, it underscores everything in this study. Making ‘community policing’ everyone’s responsibility is key to effective policing today. Matrix seeks to:
• Understand and evaluate community policing policies and strategies. • Evaluate feedback and accountability mechanisms.
• Understand and evaluate how the community is brought into the process. (2) Policies
The review will consider the effectiveness of policies, practices and activities, including:
• Identify areas which represent risk to the Department. • Determining how policies support equity, diversity and inclusion. (3) Complaint Handling
The project team will analyze the current complaint process, other internal management control processes to identify strengths and opportunities for improvement in:
• Transparency
• Accessibility
• Accountability
(4) Training
The project team will review the current training program. The review will examine:
• How the training plan is developed (trends, prevailing practice, identified issues). • The amount of training that personnel receive and how that training supports effective policing and community engagement.
• The content of training related to de-escalation, procedural justice, cultural competency, implicit bias or other similar training.
The project team will also evaluate overall organizational structure as part of this task examining the allocation of functions among managers, spans of control and interdependencies.
Task 5 – Develop the Final Report
Once the work tasks described in the preceding sections have been completed, our findings, conclusions, and recommendations will be developed into a final report on the study for the Piedmont Police Department. The report will incorporate previous interim deliverables into a single unified document, combining the analysis of all functional areas of the PPD. The document will be structured as follows:
• An executive summary, which includes an overview of the process used to conduct the study, key results, and a list of recommendations in the report. • Analysis of workloads and personnel needs for all PPD functions, which includes:
o Detailed analysis of current patrol workloads, availability factors (e.g., leaves, turnover, training etc.), and patrol proactivity;
o Investigative workloads and case management practices; o Allocation of resources to administrative and support functions and potential reallocation of resources to the various functions. • Analysis of organization and management systems, which examines the current structure and organization of the Piedmont Police Department and identifies its strengths and opportunities for improvement based on best practices. • A plan of implementation for each study recommendation with schedule, costs and responsible parties.
Following completion of the draft final report, the document will be reviewed with the PPD, and revisions will be made. The implementation plan will outline the proposed timing for implementation, the proposed cost (or savings), and identification of lead responsibility.
Work has already begun in the form of interviews, the development of the agency profile, and data analysis efforts. The project is expected to be completed this summer. The final report will be presented to the City Council, Public Safety Committee, and also be made available to the public.
By: Jeremy Bowers, Chief of Police