Crime & Safety

Shorewood Police Chief Pitches Consolidation with Whitefish Bay

Banaszynski tells Bay trustees that merger could save more than $70,000 annually. Trustees said they would like more detail about possible savings.

Updated 9:05 a.m.

Shorewood Police Chief David Banaszynski made his case to the Whitefish Bay Village Board Monday night to consolidate the two villages’ police departments, which he said could save each community at least $70,000 per year.

In his presentation to the Village Board, Banaszynski said a consolidation would eliminate unnecessary personnel, equipment and other duplicated services in the two neighboring communities. He said the two villages have already consolidated fire department services with the North Shore Fire Department, and share the same police records system, court records system, police dispatching system and a health department.

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“The harsh reality is our villages are not growing. We are stagnant as far as new revenue goes,” he said. “The population is decreasing slightly in both communities, and we have to come up with new ways of paying for our resources in our communities, and I really believe that is the truth.”

Banaszynski presented his idea to consolidate the police departments for the first time Monday night. He presented the idea to the Shorewood Village Board more than two years ago, and he said trustees were excited by the idea.

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He noted there have been several other police department consolidations in Wisconsin, most recently the 1995 consolidation of Kimberly and Little Chute into the Fox Valley Metro Police Department. He said the biggest issue that stands in the way in most communities relates to questions of local control and identity.

“With both the villages being of the same size and oddly similar in many ways, I don’t think that will be as big an issue,” he said.

Banaszynski noted the similarities of the two communities: Whitefish Bay is 2.1 square miles and Shorewood is 1.3 square miles, both communities have roughly the same population, both have one main retail corridor, neither has any major industrial areas, and both have a proactive policing philosophy.

He said the two departments are also similar but redundant in terms of personnel and equipment. Shorewood has 25 police officers, and Whitefish Bay has 24 officers. On a given shift, each department has three patrol officers and a supervisor, but his management coursework said a supervisor should be able to oversee six or seven officers.

“In three square miles, we have six officers and two supervisors. Couldn’t one supervisor’s span of control be six officers?” he asked. “In our table of organization there would be three supervisors per shift, thereby eliminating a lot of the overtime, and the detective bureau would not have to take over supervision and could go back to detective duties.”

Banaszynski’s plan calls for a merged department with 44 officers instead of 49, which would include one less set of supervisors and one less detective. He said the salary and benefit savings would total $101,500 per employee, or $507,500 for all five employees.

He said his financial projections do not include the cost of a new facility. If the two departments were to merge, Banaszynski proposed the two departments move under a single roof. One potential location Banaszynski mentioned would be the former AB Data building at 4057 N. Wilson Drive. He said the 28,000 square-foot building has been available for 2½ years and is now for sale at $2.5 million. Even if the villages purchased that building and invested another $2.5 million in remodeling the facilities, each community would still see an eventual savings of $140,000 annually or $70,000 per community, he said.

Banaszynski’s projections also do not include the savings that would come from the streamlining of equipment purchases and clerical duties.

Banszynski also said there are some equipment redundancies, such as fingerprinting systems, radar systems, interview recording systems and the extra squad car each department stocks in case another car breaks down.

“There you have $40,000 sitting there because you have to have your own,” he said of the extra squads.

Since the departments work closely together, Bansazynski said a consolidated department would also be some operational advantages, such as training together and sharing a unified command structure.

He noted Shorewood does have a higher crime rate than Whitefish Bay, but he did not think officers under a consolidated police department would spend more time in Shorewood than Whitefish Bay because squads would have assigned patrol areas.

Banaszynski suggested the Village Board consider creating a committee to further analyze a possible consolidation, but several trustees said they need more details about the financial model before they take that step. In addition to capital costs, Village President Kathleen Pritchard said governance issues should also be addressed.

Village Trustee Julie Siegel suggested village officials reach out to other five North Shore communities to see if they have any interest in forming a potential consolidation.

Even though many details are unknown, Village Trustee Kevin Buckley said he would like the issue to be discussed again in the future.

“What I don’t want to see is 2012 come and us not talk about it again. I know we have a lot of irons in the fire this year, but we need to set at least an understanding that sometime in the next six months we will come back and revisit this,” he said.  “The chief has suggested setting up a joint committee to further studying this issue. I think the answer to that is ‘probably.’ ”


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