SOUTH HADLEY — The public is invited to a forum to review and discuss the recent findings of the South Hadley Police Department Staffing Report produced by Municipal Resources Inc. on Wednesday, Oct. 23 at 6 p.m.
The forum will be hosted at the South Hadley Senior Center, 45 Dayton St.
MRI was hired to conduct a staffing study of the department. They performed a multi-year look-back at various aspects of the organization including calls for service, staffing levels, budget and projected data into a reasonable future view to assist with identifying what the town should anticipate for staffing now and in the future.
Readers can learn more and read the study on the town website at www.southhadley.org under the “projects” tab at the top of the page.
Any further comments and questions can be sent to selectboard@southhadleyma.gov.
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 MRI to conduct a staffing study of the Police Department and provide technical assistance to the town in researching, analyzing and recommending police staffing.
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 explained, “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.”
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.”
Looking further 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 also be committee input into the fiscal year 2026 budget process in early 2025.
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.
