Police chief talks police department budget

TUMWATER –– Tumwater city officials met Monday morning to discuss the police department’s annual budget and how they allocate their financial resources.

The Tumwater Police Department’s budget stands at $8.04 million for the coming year. 

“I think what is most shocking when I look at these numbers is that 96 percent of that budget is completely taken up and outside of my direct control through salaries, benefits and jail services,” said Police Chief Jon Weiks. “So when you look at that number of $8 million, we have about $348,000 to operate the department on.”

Weiks said the four percent that isn’t specifically designated to certain budget items leaves two percent for the payment of software costs in the department, and only two percent for other operations. 

Weiks said a significant portion is allocated to jail services, and some of that goes to paying for contracts with other jails in the area.

“Currently we contract with the Nisqually Tribal Jail,” Weiks said. “We have a five-bed guarantee with the jail and we have a contract with them through 2021.”

Software maintenance requires another large portion, at $121,050 total.

“Right now [with] the software maintenance in 2020, we spent $75,000 in 2020 on a records management system,” said Weiks. “We belong to a consortium involving Olympia, Lacey, Yelm, Tumwater, and Tenino. And all of our costs are broken down by percentages based on your population.”

This category also encompasses the likes of code enforcement, the fingerprint system, scheduling and overtime and public disclosure.

Like any institution, the department needs adequate supplies of various types to perform its day-to-day functions. Supplies, Weiks added, cost $108,500, or about one percent of the budget.

“This is anything from pens, paper, pencils, body armor, firearms,” said Weiks. “Everything we need for our officers to operate safely from personal protective equipment to pens and paper, we have. Everything we need to operate comes out of the supplies line.”

Training also costs a significant amount for both new officers and ongoing professional training. The budget allows for $36,000 of training and travel expenses a year, and more than $13,000 are allotted for conferences. 

“We don’t know what training and travel’s going to look like coming into this next biennium with COVID,” Weiks said. “Pretty much, the police department has to have 24 hours of training per officer to maintain certifications minimum. We’re not really sure what that’s going to look like right now because of COVID restrictions.”

The way the department structures its staffing relates to the question of funding as well. The police department was reorganized in 2016, according to Weiks, some of which was caused by long-time veteran officers retiring from the police department. With the influx of young officers coming in, remaining managerial staff at the department required more supervision and training for the young department. 

“Historically we’ve been really seniority heavy, we’ve had a lot of experience and a lot of employees who stayed for quite a while and so supervision was not a real concern,” said Weiks. “We knew we were going to be changing with the annexation and just the retirements. As you’re aware, in the last three or four years we replaced 12 positions which is about 33 percent of our staff, and so we’ve become quite young [and so] wanted to get better supervision.”

Of course, more than half the total budget is allocated to paying its staff by salary, at $4.7 million. Each position has a salary range that can vary, but generally becomes higher as the level of leadership increases up the chain of command. 

“[And] those are the base salaries, so there are also provisions in employment contracts for premium pay,” said Council member John Doan. “For example, detectives, school resource officers, certain types of training officers, education incentives and a physical fitness incentive, I believe there are provisions for all of those that can stack on top of that salary up to a certain point. Those [can] add onto it as does overtime.”

In regards to adding new staff, the department wants to recruit the best individuals for the job.

“Our background investigation is exhaustive,” said Weiks. “We want to know who we’re getting. You have to have good people before you give them training.”