Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen discusses the police staffing report at the Selectboard meeting on Aug. 6.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
SOUTH HADLEY — During its Aug. 6 meeting, the Selectboard met with Police Chief Jennifer Gundersen to discuss the police staffing study draft report.
On April 3, South Hadley contracted Municipal Resources, Inc. to conduct a staffing study of the Police Department and provide technical assistance to the town in researching, analyzing and recommending police staffing.
MRI conducted a multi-year look-back at various aspects of the organizations and has collected various data from South Hadley to provide a substantive review and analysis of the current data available.
The 30-page document discussed the policing environment, the service population, comparable communities, competent police response to citizen’s requests, organization structures, call volume and their conclusion.
The conclusion read, “MRI found the agency to be on the cusp of struggling to maintain what is considered to be an adequate response to meet the demands of the South Hadley community. The goal of this report is to quickly identify the number of patrol officers required to address the existing demands upon the agency with a defensible prediction of the future needs. While five immediate hires are recommended, this number could easily expand to address the community’s desire for a focused traffic initiative and Chief Gundersen’s aspiration for a detective sergeant to oversee the investigative unit. Without staffing, the agency may be unable to maintain a proactive policing strategy and will slowly evolve into one of reaction.”
At the time of this report, the South Hadley Police Department consists of 30 full-time sworn police officer positions.
Gundersen said she was not too shocked with some of the findings in the report, including the need for more staff.
“I think I’ve been through a few budgetary processes here in South Hadley and my mantra has always been we get the job done but are we doing it to the extent and to the level of excellence that South Hadley community expects of us. It’s about stretching resources,” Gundersen said.
She added, “In reading this report, there’s some data that’s good and there’s some data that I don’t really find very valid. It was not surprising to me that the consultant was able to observe that we had less staffing than some like departments, it wasn’t surprising to me they made the recommendation that we could use some additional staffing but I firmly believe we work at the pleasure of the town of South Hadley and we get some guidance, but I think we need some help prioritizing because we are stretched very thin.”
The answer may not be just adding police officers, according to Gundersen. The responsibilities of a police officer have expanded over the past few years and there could be other positions that can help with the workload.
She said, “I don’t know if it is always having more police officers, is that what is best? Is it having civilians do the job, do we reassign some of the duties we have to either other departments or nonprofits. Do we look at civilizing some of our duties. I am not against looking at things we can do better and taking help that we can get. We got the clinician, in bringing in a civilian clinician was for the sole purpose of providing a better service to the community, but also allowing our officers to be more efficient with their time.”
Gundersen said with the Police Department being considered a 24/7 business, officers take care of a lot of different calls including complexities around affordable housing and providing resources often fall on the department.
She explained, “When I started in policing there were more resources for people that were in crisis or had mental health conditions and we’re really not finding that there are hospital spaces or beds for those members of our community that live here and a lot of the assistance they are offered being a 24/7 organization, they fall on the Police Department. Schools are unable to provide resources to students and their caregivers and then some of those issues fall over when the student comes home from school and then there is complexity with family violence that we’re then dealing with. It seems, believe it or not, government does shrink in a lot of different ways but the police, being a 24/7 organization, have to pick up a lot of those pieces and fill that void.”
According to the report, MRI observed that the community expectations for the South Hadley police are very high, and the staff of the department work diligently to meet those expectations.
Gundersen said, “I am so proud of the South Hadley police officers that care very much about the community. Most of them grew up in this town, they went to school in this town, they’re really committed but they find that when they’re not able to be out there proactively policing and interacting with the community, it’s discouraging to them, this job has changed a lot.”
Looking ahead, Town Administrator Lisa Wong solicited letters of interest to serve on the Police Staffing Study Advisory Committee from May 2024 to May 2025.
The committee will provide input into the process and draft of the study.
There will be a public forum that will take place prior to January 2025, the date that MRI will be finalizing a report. There will also be committee input into the fiscal year 2026 budget process in early 2025.
Gundersen talked about the future public forum and said, “What I’m looking for is some guidance of how we can evaluate what is here, how can we find out from the community, from stakeholders what is important to them and then we make some decisions from the information that we gather from this.”
The Selectboard said they will set a date for a public forum during their next meeting in September.
Wong also said she believes this is just the beginning of the conversation and the new Human Services Department will also help with potential problems and solutions.
