West Orange Police Department Restructures After Layoffs, Demotions

It's been a week since West Orange Township laid off eight police officers and demoted 16 others. Since then, the township has reorganized its police department with less manpower to combat crime and to ensure public safety in a climate that's economically unpredictable.

One of the biggest changes is that there no longer will be four police officers — school resource officers — working in West Orange's public schools. West Orange Mayor Robert Parisi, who is now the township's police director, as dictated by an ordinance since the elimination of that job in January, says those officers were needed back on the streets. One officer, though, remains at the high school.

"It is very regrettable that we were unable to come to an agreement to prevent the layoffs or the demotions," said Parisi. "With that said, we move forward and have restructured the department to account for less police officers."

The police officers were laid off and demoted to help plug a $3.4 million township budget gap.

Parisi said that required moving officers within the department and placing more officers on the streets.

"Clearly, with less officers, we have to eliminate certain services we were able to provide and that's just the product of doing more with less," he said. "So, several of the officers that were regularly scheduled to work in the schools have been removed."

Anthony Cavanna, West Orange's superintendent of schools, said the district is coping with the loss of the officers. "We're in the process of coming up with a plan to address the health and safety needs of our schools," he said. He said he is working with the police department to develop a solution. One includes hiring part-time security personnel. The school system already has five security officers that aided police in patrol.

"I think that the presence of the police officers created a good link between the school and the police and the community, instead of the police being there as security, it was more of a community-building effort," said Cavanna. "Students got to know police officers and got to work with them within the community."

Besides the loss of the school resource officers, Parisi said some officers that served in administrative roles have been reassigned. The mayor said that is to put as many officers as possible back on patrol to serve the community.

"The table of organization, though less officers, has as many patrolmen that we've had before and we will continue to provide the same level of services as before," he said.

As part of the layoff plan, the department witnessed 11 actual demotions and five retirements. One captain, two lieutenants and two sergeants retired. The force now has one chief, one deputy chief, three captains, six lieutenants, 19 sergeants and 66 officers for a total of 96. That includes the eight layoffs. In 2010, the number of total officers was 110, with two officers on leave. In 2009, the total number was 119.

"We felt we could still serve the town appropriately with this layoff plan," said Parisi.

Parisi said the department also reassigned one officer out of the community services unit, "Though this unit s still functioning, it's not the same number of men as it was."

West Orange Police Officer and Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Christopher Jacksic said the remaining officers will continue to do "the best we can."

"There will be other services that will suffer because those people used to do other jobs. We're doing fundraising for the people laid off," he said. "The surrounding agencies are hiring, so are other parts of Essex (County)." He said some of the officers have applications in with other agencies.

Jacksic said, though, morale has plummeted. "The worst I've ever seen," he said. "It got bad when this whole thing got announced … it's horrendous now."

He said the department has dropped to staff numbers not seen since the mid-1980s. "It's never really been this low since I can document," he said. "It's never been under 100 since I've been here 16 years."

Parisi said that even with the layoff plan, the township will combat crime on the streets and ensure safety of residents. He said that with the demotions and reassignments, the number of officers on the streets hasn't changed and West Orange police will do their job.

"We're all expected to live within our means in our own lives and government has to do the same thing," he said.

Parisi, who will not earn any extra pay as police director, said the township has not seen a spike in crime this year, but did acknowledge that the Gregory Section had a number of burglaries at the end of last year and into the beginning of 2011. He said arrests were made in those cases.

"Unfortunately, it's a part of life and a part of life in Essex County where we have a lot of people and crime," he said.

Crime in West Orange dropped 16 percent last year, according to the township's uniform crime report, a decrease, the mayor said, which occurred with fewer officers on the streets because of retirements. "Though that's never the goal to have less men, it's a matter of living within our means," he said.

Parisi said that most of West Orange's border municipalities — Glen Ridge, Livingston, Montclair, Roseland and South Orange — work cooperatively with the township to combat crime that could spill into its borders.

Though some officers, who did not want to give their names, said they are concerned about crime in neighboring Orange, which has seen roughly 10 shootings since January — one a homicide.

"Though I'm not an expert in police work, having 200 officers isn't going to prevent people from Orange coming into our town and committing crimes," said Parisi. "That regrettably happens and we will continue to deal with that appropriately … no amount of resources is going to stop that."

Parisi said the department works cooperatively with Montclair, South Orange and Livingston, but said the township doesn't have the same cooperative relationship with Orange.

Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins Jr. said, though, he's willing to work with Parisi. "If Mayor Parisi would like a better working relationship with Orange, all he has to do is pick up the phone and call me," he said.

Jacksic said the trend likely won't decrease and, with less officers now on the force, it will become more difficult to combat crime on the border.

"Usually, the trend in crime is that it goes up with the weather getting warmer," he said. "I anticipate us struggling just like the other towns have. The criminal faction knows what's going on. They know who's getting laid off."