Cobb Commissioners Approve Expanded Police Funding

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a fiscal year 2015 budget which included a 5.75 percent increase in the county’s police budget, initiating a plan to restore the department to full strength by the beginning of 2017.

The expanded budget of $57,741,101 will allow the county to start hiring more police officers, including three new police captains, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The extra money will also provide for the creation of an assigned patrol car program which should kick off in March, 2015.

According to the county’s plan for revamping the police department, the newly-hired officers will allow police to implement 10 hour shifts at precincts 3 and 1 by the end of 2016, and to expand the shift change to precincts 4 and 5 as more officers are hired. Ten hour shifts mean fewer shift changes and more overlap in officer coverage, increasing crime safety for citizens.

Patrol vehicles will be assigned to officers based on their seniority, disciplinary history, driving ability, and residency. It will take several years and 230 more police cars to fully outfit the department. Some of the funds for the new police cars could come from the 2016 SPLOST one-cent sales tax on the November ballot.

Officers currently on the force will see a three percent merit-based raise as a provision of the new budget, and differential pay will begin at the beginning of 2015. The county is also investigating the optimal level of educational incentive bonus pay, which would reward officers for achieving post secondary degrees.

According to the outline, it is estimated that the department will need to hire 232 new officers by the end of 2016 to have a fully staffed department. To achieve this goal, the department has bolstered its recruiting department and appeared at more community events in an attempt to hire more officers. The application and background check processes have also been streamlined.

To accommodate the new number of hires, the department will soon host four 20-week mandate training sessions a year, as opposed to the two sessions it currently provides. The sessions will take place in January, April, July, and October of each year, with the first of the new sessions being held on Oct. 13 of this year. The curriculum has also been refined to include more relevant training in a shorter period of time.

The plan to rebuild the decimated department has begun, but critics say it could have been started sooner. Former public safety director Jack Forsythe resigned in January after he became frustrated with county leaders’ apparent refusal to implement a similar policy he had drafted.