Analytics and Reports, Law Enforcement Analytics

Transforming Medium-Sized Police Departments for Fiscal Resilience

The policing profession currently stands at a precipice defined by two opposing forces: the contraction of municipal fiscal capacity and the expansion of public service expectations. For the Chief of Police managing a medium-sized department—serving a population ranging from 50,000 to 250,000—this tension is acute. Unlike major metropolitan agencies, medium-sized departments lack the vast economies of scale and specialized administrative layers to absorb budgetary shocks. Conversely, unlike small-town agencies, they face complex, urban-level crime dynamics that require sophisticated, capital-intensive responses.1

The mandate from city management and elected bodies has shifted from “do more with less”—a cliché that often results in burnout and service degradation—to a requirement for “Strategic Resource Optimization.” This paradigm views the police budget not as a static allocation of funds to be exhausted, but as a dynamic investment portfolio where every dollar spent and every officer hour deployed must demonstrate a tangible Return on Investment (ROI) regarding public safety outcomes.3

Research indicates that the traditional approach to police budgeting—incrementalism, or simply adjusting the previous year’s budget by a fixed percentage—is no longer viable in the post-2008 and post-pandemic economic landscape.5 Agencies are grappling with a “personnel crisis” driven by sociopolitical factors and changing workforce demographics, which drives up the cost of recruitment and retention.6 Therefore, the optimization of value and cost is inextricably linked to the optimization of human capital.

The Methodology of Value

The strategies detailed in this report are not merely cost-cutting measures. Indiscriminate cuts to training, equipment, or personnel often lead to long-term liabilities, increased crime, and expensive lawsuits that dwarf the initial savings.7 Instead, the focus is on structural re-engineering. The analysis draws upon a comprehensive review of peer-reviewed studies, agency annual reports, and verified case studies from jurisdictions that have successfully navigated these fiscal challenges.

The following ten strategies represent high-impact levers for fiscal optimization. They are categorized by their primary mechanism of value generation:

  1. Demand Reduction: Reducing the volume of low-value calls for service (False Alarms, Differential Response).
  2. Operational Efficiency: Maximizing the productivity of deployed resources (12-Hour Shifts, DDACTS, Fleet Modernization).
  3. Structural Re-engineering: Altering the composition of the workforce and service delivery model (Civilianization, Regionalization, Outsourcing, Volunteerism).
  4. Diversion and Mitigation: Addressing root causes to prevent costly downstream justice system involvement (Co-Responder Models).

1. Regulatory Modernization: Aggressive False Alarm Management

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

The response to residential and commercial burglar alarms constitutes one of the most significant misappropriations of sworn officer time in American policing. Empirical data consistently demonstrates that between 98% and 99% of all mechanical alarm activations are false, triggered by user error, weather, or faulty equipment rather than criminal activity.8 For a medium-sized agency, this operational reality translates into thousands of wasted patrol hours annually.

When officers are dispatched to a false alarm, the cost extends beyond fuel and salary. There is an “opportunity cost”—that officer is unavailable for proactive community engagement, traffic enforcement, or responding to genuine emergencies. Furthermore, the routine nature of false alarms creates a dangerous complacency, where officers may respond with reduced tactical vigilance, increasing safety risks.8 From a fiscal perspective, the status quo functions as a public subsidy to private security companies, where the taxpayer bears the operational cost of the private sector’s product unreliability.

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

Optimizing this function requires a shift from a service-oriented mindset to a regulatory mindset. Effective False Alarm Reduction Programs (FARP) are built on three pillars: strict registration, verified response protocols, and graduated cost recovery.

The Ordinance Framework

Successful agencies implement ordinances that mandate alarm permits. This is not primarily for revenue, but for accountability. Without a permit system, the agency lacks the data to identify chronic abusers of police services. The ordinance must establish a “graduated fine structure,” where penalties escalate rapidly for repeat offenses. For example, the City of Los Angeles imposes a fee of $219 for the first false alarm (if unpermitted), which escalates significantly for subsequent violations, incentivizing users to repair faulty systems.11

Enhanced Call Verification (ECV)

A critical operational pivot is the mandate for Enhanced Call Verification (ECV). This policy requires alarm monitoring companies to make a minimum of two attempts to contact the alarm subscriber (e.g., calling the premise line and a mobile number) before requesting police dispatch. This simple procedural change can reduce dispatch requests by 30-50% by resolving accidental activations over the phone.8

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Marietta Police Department, Georgia

The Challenge: In 2007, the Marietta Police Department analyzed its call load and discovered that approximately 10% of total calls for service were alarm-related, with a 99% false positive rate. This volume effectively removed two full-time officers from the street every single day.10

The Intervention: The department adopted a customized version of the “Georgia Model Alarm Ordinance.” Key features included mandatory annual registration and a strict ECV requirement. Crucially, they implemented a “three strikes” rule where fines began only after the third false alarm, but escalated thereafter.

The Result: The implementation led to a drastic reduction in call volume. The public education campaign prompted residents to fix faulty systems. By shifting the verification burden to the alarm companies, the department recovered thousands of man-hours, essentially receiving a “budget increase” in the form of regained officer availability without hiring new staff.

Broken Arrow Police Department, Oklahoma

The Challenge: Broken Arrow faced administrative bottlenecks in managing permits and billing manually. The administrative cost of the program threatened to outweigh the recovered revenue.12

The Intervention: The city integrated its alarm permitting into a broader “Community Permitting and Licensing” digital portal, utilizing third-party software (CryWolf) to automate tracking and billing.

The Result: Automation proved to be the force multiplier. The system automatically flagged properties with valid permits versus those without, allowing for differential billing. This reduced the administrative overhead significantly, ensuring that the revenue collected from fines was true “net revenue” rather than just covering the cost of the billing clerk.

Seattle Police Department, Washington

The Challenge: Seattle aimed to aggressively recover the costs of police services from high-frequency users.8

The Intervention: Seattle’s program is explicit in its goal: “recover expenses.” The department strictly enforces a policy where dispatch can be refused if the alarm company does not provide a valid user registration number. They utilize a dedicated unit to audit alarm company compliance.

The Result: The city reduced false alarm volume from 25,000 annually to fewer than 11,000. This 56% reduction is the operational equivalent of hiring multiple patrol squads. The revenue generated creates a self-sustaining ecosystem where the regulation funds its own enforcement.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Data Audit: Conduct a 12-month lookback to quantify the exact number of alarm calls and the false alarm rate.
  2. Legislative Action: Draft an ordinance requiring ECV and Permits.
  3. Vendor Partnership: Contract with a third-party administrator (e.g., CryWolf, CentralSquare) to handle billing in exchange for a percentage of revenue, eliminating upfront administrative costs.13
  4. Public Education: Launch a 90-day grace period to allow residents to register before fines commence.

2. Workforce Optimization: The 12-Hour Shift Schedule

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

In any police budget, personnel costs—salaries, overtime, and benefits—typically consume 85% to 90% of total expenditures. Therefore, the most impactful cost-control measure is optimizing how this human capital is deployed. The traditional 8-hour shift schedule, consisting of five workdays and two days off, is increasingly viewed as fiscally inefficient and detrimental to officer wellness.14

Eight-hour shifts inherently create three shift changes per day. Shift changes are prime generators of “incidental overtime,” where officers are held over to finish reports or handle late calls. Furthermore, the 5-day work week requires officers to commute more frequently, increasing fatigue and fuel consumption. The 12-hour shift model has emerged as a superior alternative for medium-sized agencies, offering a mathematical advantage in coverage and a significant boost in officer retention.14

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

The 12-hour model relies on compressed work weeks. The most common configuration is the “Pitman Schedule” (2 days on, 2 off, 3 on, 2 off, 2 on, 3 off). This cycle repeats every two weeks.

  • Coverage Efficiency: It requires only two shifts (Day/Night) per 24-hour period, reducing the “leakage” of overtime at shift change by 33% compared to 8-hour shifts.16
  • Built-in Recovery: Officers work 14 days out of every 28-day cycle, compared to 20 days on an 8-hour schedule. They receive every other weekend off (Friday, Saturday, Sunday), which is a massive non-monetary benefit.16

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Lincoln Police Department, Nebraska

The Challenge: Lincoln PD sought to improve operational efficiency and officer morale but needed empirical data to justify the disruption of a schedule change.15

The Intervention: The department conducted a rigorous trial and evaluation of the 12-hour shift.

The Result: The study found that officers on 12-hour shifts reported higher satisfaction with work-life balance due to the increased days off. Operationally, the department maintained or improved response times. While raw fatigue levels can be higher at the end of a 12-hour shift, the increased recovery days (3-day weekends) resulted in a net improvement in overall officer wellness compared to the chronic fatigue of a 5-day work week.15

Fayetteville Police Department, North Carolina

The Challenge: Like many medium agencies, Fayetteville faced a retention crisis and needed a competitive edge in recruiting against larger state and federal agencies.18

The Intervention: The agency implemented a modified DuPont 12-hour schedule with permanent day and night shifts.

The Result: The schedule became a primary recruiting tool. The guarantee of having 50% of the year off (in days) appealed to the modern workforce’s desire for work-life balance. Financially, the fixed schedule reduced the variance in overtime spending, allowing for more precise budget forecasting.

Troy Police Department, Ohio

The Challenge: Staffing shortages left the agency struggling to fill the roster on an 8.5-hour rotation.14

The Intervention: The transition to 12-hour shifts was used as a force stabilization measure.

The Result: By lengthening the shift, the agency required fewer officers to be present on any given day to cover the 24-hour clock. This allowed the Chief to maintain minimum staffing levels without forcing mandatory overtime drafts, which destroys morale. The change was described as “highly welcomed” by staff, proving that working longer hours on duty is acceptable if the off-duty recovery time is substantial.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Feasibility Study: Analyze call volume by hour to determine start times (e.g., 0600/1800 vs 0700/1900) to align with peak demand.20
  2. Labor Negotiation: Engage unions early. The “every other weekend off” benefit is the primary selling point to rank-and-file.16
  3. Fatigue Policy: Implement strict policies regarding off-duty employment and court appearances to ensure officers are actually resting on their off days.21

3. Structural Re-engineering: Strategic Civilianization

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

The deployment of a sworn police officer—equipped with a badge, gun, and arrest powers—to perform administrative or technical tasks represents a gross inefficiency in resource allocation. Sworn officers are expensive assets; they require lengthy academy training, carry high liability insurance, and accrue substantial pension obligations. “Civilianization” (or professional staffing) is the strategic replacement of sworn personnel with non-sworn professionals in roles that do not require police powers.22

This strategy leverages the concept of “comparative advantage.” A civilian forensic technician is often more skilled at processing a crime scene than a patrol officer, and they cost significantly less in terms of salary and long-term benefits. This is not “de-policing”; it is “right-policing.”

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

Agencies should conduct a “Badge Audit” of every position in the department. Any role that does not require the authority to arrest, search, or use force should be evaluated for conversion.

  • High-Value Targets: Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), Background Investigations, Public Information Officers (PIO), and low-priority report taking.24
  • Community Service Officers (CSOs): These are uniformed, unarmed civilians who handle non-injury accidents, traffic control, and cold crime reports. They drive marked vehicles (often distinctively colored), providing visible presence at a fraction of the cost.25

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Mesa Police Department, Arizona

The Challenge: Mesa faced rapid population growth that outpaced its ability to hire sworn officers.26

The Intervention: The department aggressively integrated professional staff into core operations, including Community Relations Coordinators, Crime Prevention Officers, and Forensics.

The Result: This “force multiplication” allowed Mesa PD to maintain effective service levels with a lower sworn-officer-to-population ratio than peer cities. By using civilians for community engagement, the department ensured that sworn officers remained available for 911 response, effectively maximizing the utility of the sworn badge.

Virginia Beach Police Department, Virginia

The Challenge: As a tourist destination, the city experiences massive seasonal fluctuations in traffic accidents and parking issues.25

The Intervention: Virginia Beach employs a robust cadre of CSOs who handle the majority of non-injury crashes and disabled motorist assists.

The Result: A CSO can clear a crash scene just as effectively as a sworn officer but at approximately 60% of the cost. More importantly, this keeps sworn units free to respond to violent crime. The ROI is found in the “opportunity cost” savings—the reduction in response times for critical incidents because sworn units are not tied up waiting for tow trucks.

San Francisco Police Department, California (Applicable to Medium Cities)

The Challenge: High cost of living and salaries made sworn officers exceptionally expensive.27

The Intervention: A detailed audit identified 157 positions for civilianization.

The Result: The analysis projected annual savings of $2.24 million. Alternatively, these savings could be reinvested to hire 46 new police officers. This demonstrates the “budget neutrality” potential of civilianization: it creates the fiscal space to hire more sworn officers for the streets by removing them from desks.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Position Audit: Review all job descriptions. Ask: “Does this person need a gun to do this job?”
  2. Union Collaboration: Address “job protectionism” concerns by framing civilianization as a way to reduce officer workload and burnout, not to replace officers.24
  3. Professionalization: Create clear career paths for civilians (e.g., CSI I, CSI II, Supervisor) to ensure retention and morale.24

4. Economies of Scale: Regionalization and Shared Services

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

The fragmentation of American policing is a major driver of inefficiency. A medium-sized city often sits adjacent to other municipalities, each maintaining its own dispatch center, SWAT team, bomb squad, and command staff. This redundancy is expensive. “Regionalization” offers a mechanism to achieve economies of scale comparable to large metropolitan agencies while retaining local service delivery.28

Shared services can range from functional consolidation (merging just the SWAT team or Dispatch) to full departmental mergers. For medium cities, the highest immediate ROI is often found in consolidating high-overhead, capital-intensive functions like 911 Communications and specialized tactical units.

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  • Interlocal Agreements: Legal frameworks that allow municipalities to share costs and liabilities.30
  • Consolidated Dispatch: Merging multiple Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) into a single regional center. This reduces the number of staff needed to monitor phones during low-volume hours and pools capital for expensive Next-Gen 911 technology.31
  • Specialized Task Forces: Creating regional teams for narcotics, SWAT, or accident reconstruction. This eliminates the need for a single city to buy and maintain a BearCat or a Mobile Command Post that sits unused 95% of the time.32

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Northern York County Regional Police, Pennsylvania

The Challenge: Small and medium municipalities in York County faced rising costs and an inability to provide 24/7 specialized coverage.33

The Intervention: Multiple jurisdictions merged to form the NYCRPD.

The Result: A landmark study found that the regional department provided services for 28% less than the aggregate cost of individual departments. The consolidation allowed for the creation of detective bureaus and traffic units that no single town could afford. It is widely cited as the gold standard for how consolidation improves capability while lowering unit costs.

Ashby and Townsend, Massachusetts (Dispatch Consolidation)

The Challenge: Two towns faced the need for expensive radio system upgrades and staffing shortages in their dispatch centers.28

The Intervention: A feasibility study for a joint communications center.

The Result: The analysis projected savings of over $200,000 annually (approx. 10% of the combined budget) by eliminating redundant supervisory positions and reducing the total number of dispatchers needed to cover the 24-hour shift. Furthermore, the consolidated entity was eligible for state grants unavailable to individual towns, effectively subsidizing the capital costs.

Central Bucks Regional Police Department, Pennsylvania

The Challenge: Three boroughs faced the “fiscal cliff” of pension liabilities and equipment upgrades.34

The Intervention: A full merger of police operations.

The Result: The merger stabilized the municipal budgets, removing the volatility of police lawsuits and capital expenditures from the individual town ledgers. The regional department achieved state accreditation (PLEAC), reducing liability insurance premiums—a direct financial benefit of the increased professionalism that scale affords.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Political Will: Success depends on the support of elected officials. Frame the discussion around “enhanced capability” rather than just cost.35
  2. Feasibility Study: Commission a neutral third party to analyze call loads, staffing, and costs to provide an objective basis for cost-sharing formulas (e.g., 50% population / 50% call volume).36
  3. Governance Structure: Establish a “Police Commission” with representatives from each town to ensure no municipality feels they have lost local control.37

5. Demand Management: Differential Police Response (DPR)

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

Differential Police Response (DPR) is the strategic recognition that not all calls for service require the physical presence of a sworn officer. In many “cold” crime scenarios—such as theft from a vehicle, vandalism, or lost property—the victim’s primary need is documentation for insurance purposes, not immediate investigation. Dispatching a patrol car to these calls is “performative patrol”; it consumes fuel, vehicle wear, and officer time without increasing the probability of solving the crime.7

Implementing robust online reporting and teleservice (telephone reporting) units diverts these low-priority calls away from the dispatch queue. This increases the “uncommitted time” available for patrol officers, allowing them to engage in proactive work (like DDACTS, discussed in Section 7) rather than purely reactive report taking.38

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  • Online Reporting Systems: Secure web portals where citizens can file reports for specific crime types (no suspect information, no injury). These systems can automatically integrate with Records Management Systems (RMS), eliminating data entry costs.1
  • Teleservice Units: Staffing a desk with light-duty officers or civilians to take reports over the phone.
  • Procedural Justice: It is critical to ensure that citizens feel “heard” even without an officer presence. Auto-generated email updates and professional follow-up protocols are essential to maintain trust.38

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Portland Police Bureau, Oregon

The Challenge: Portland faced a severe staffing shortage and rising call volume, leading to unacceptable wait times for emergency calls.38

The Intervention: The Bureau aggressively expanded its online reporting criteria to include theft, vandalism, and hit-and-run (property damage only).

The Result: Online reporting now accounts for approximately 39% of all crime reports and 47% of property crime reports. This diverts between 25,000 and 30,000 calls annually from patrol. The fiscal impact is the equivalent of adding dozens of officers to the force without the associated salary costs.

Syracuse Police Department, New York

The Challenge: High call volume was burying patrol officers in paperwork, preventing proactive enforcement.39

The Intervention: Implementation of “Tele-Serve” and “E-Serve” protocols. 911 call takers were trained to mandatorily divert eligible calls to these systems rather than offering citizens a choice.

The Result: The diversion of non-emergency calls cleared the radio airwaves and reduced the backlog of “pending” calls. This improved response times for genuine emergencies, as officers were not tied up taking cold burglary reports.

Houston Police Department, Texas

The Challenge: A massive metropolitan area where travel time to calls is significant.40

The Intervention: A “Tele Serve Unit” staffed by officers on light duty (due to injury) or civilians.

The Result: The program generated substantial savings by eliminating the travel time associated with physical response. Furthermore, it served as a retention and productivity tool, allowing injured officers to remain contributors to the mission while recovering, rather than sitting idle on paid leave.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Policy Definition: Clearly define the criteria for online/teleservice (e.g., no suspect, no evidence, no injury).41
  2. Technology Integration: Ensure the online portal feeds directly into the RMS to avoid double-entry.
  3. Public Messaging: Market the system as a “convenience” for the citizen (file a report in 5 minutes vs waiting 2 hours for an officer) rather than a service cut.42

6. Capital Asset Optimization: Fleet Modernization

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

The police fleet represents the second largest line item in most department budgets after personnel. The traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) police interceptor is fiscally inefficient due to the unique operational profile of police work: vehicles idle for hours to power electronics and climate control, accelerate rapidly, and are driven aggressively. This leads to massive fuel consumption and frequent, expensive maintenance (brakes, transmissions, oil changes).43

The transition to Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (EVs) offers a compelling Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) argument. While the upfront purchase price of an EV is currently higher (though the gap is narrowing), the reduction in operating costs is so drastic that the break-even point is often reached within 18-24 months. For a vehicle with a 5-6 year lifecycle, the net savings are substantial.44

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  • Hybrid Interceptors: The immediate “drop-in” solution. They require no charging infrastructure and offer significant savings on idling (the gas engine shuts off while the battery powers the lights/radio).
  • Full EVs (Tesla/Mustang Mach-E): The long-term solution. They require charging infrastructure but offer near-zero maintenance costs (no oil changes, fewer brake replacements due to regenerative braking).46

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Fremont Police Department, California

The Challenge: Fremont aimed to test the viability of EVs in a patrol capacity.46

The Intervention: Pilot deployment of a Tesla Model S 85 alongside a standard Ford Explorer Interceptor.

The Result: The pilot provided precise data. The annual energy cost for the Tesla was $1,036, compared to $5,133 for the Ford (gas). Maintenance downtime was reduced by 27 days for the Tesla. The total annual operational cost was $5,901 for the Tesla versus $8,048 for the Ford. Over the lifecycle, the EV saves tens of thousands of dollars per unit.

Bargersville Police Department, Indiana

The Challenge: A small-to-medium agency needing to free up budget dollars for personnel.45

The Intervention: The Chief replaced the Dodge Charger fleet with Tesla Model 3s.

The Result: The department reported savings of approximately $6,000 per vehicle per year. The Chief explicitly linked these savings to human capital: the money saved on gas and oil changes was sufficient to hire additional officers. This is a prime example of converting operational waste into operational capacity.

Hingham Police Department, Massachusetts

The Challenge: A desire to reduce costs without the logistical hurdle of installing EV chargers.48

The Intervention: Transitioned to Ford Police Interceptor Utility Hybrids.

The Result: In the first six months, the hybrids used 46% less fuel than the non-hybrid versions. Projected annual savings were $34,600 for the fleet. Because officer behavior did not need to change (no charging), the adoption was seamless and the ROI was immediate.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Pilot Program: Start with administrative or detective units to test charging logistics before committing patrol units.44
  2. Infrastructure Planning: Factor the cost of Level 2 chargers into the initial capital request. Partner with city public works to share charging stations.45
  3. Lifecycle Analysis: When presenting to the City Council, present the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) over 5 years, not just the sticker price.

7. Operational Precision: Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety (DDACTS)

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

Random patrol—officers driving aimlessly hoping to stumble upon crime—is an inefficient use of resources. DDACTS (Data-Driven Approaches to Crime and Traffic Safety) is an operational model that leverages the high correlation between crime hotspots and traffic crash hotspots. By overlaying these two data sets, agencies can identify specific geographic zones where highly visible traffic enforcement yields a “dual dividend”: reducing crashes and suppressing crime simultaneously.49

For a medium-sized agency, DDACTS is “precision policing.” It allows the Chief to justify traffic enforcement budgets as crime-fighting budgets and ensures that every hour of “uncommitted” patrol time is directed to the exact coordinates where it will generate the highest safety return.50

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  1. Data Overlay: Analysts map Part 1 crimes (robbery, burglary) and traffic accidents over a 3-year period.
  2. Zone Identification: Identify 3-5 small geographic zones where both overlap.
  3. Dosage: Mandate that officers spend their uncommitted time in these zones conducting high-visibility stops. The goal is visibility, not necessarily tickets.
  4. Evaluation: Track crime and crash rates in the zones monthly.51

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Shawnee Police Department, Kansas

The Challenge: Economic conditions forced a 4.5% reduction in sworn officers, while crime was rising.50

The Intervention: The department adopted DDACTS to optimize the deployment of its shrinking workforce.

The Result: Despite having fewer officers, the department achieved reductions in robbery and burglaries in the target zones. The focused activity proved that the “dosage” of police presence (where they are) matters more than the raw number of officers. This success allowed the agency to maintain public safety standards despite budget cuts.

Cleburne Police Department, Texas

The Challenge: Need to reduce property crime and accident rates with existing resources.52

The Intervention: Implementation of DDACTS zones.

The Result: Theft, burglary, and robbery decreased by 22% in the DDACTS zones compared to the three-year average. Crashes decreased by 5.5%. The strategy maximized the efficiency of the patrol force, essentially increasing their “per-hour” impact on community safety.

Baltimore County Police Department, Maryland

The Challenge: A large agency applying the model to specific medium-sized corridors.53

The Intervention: Targeted traffic enforcement on six major corridors.

The Result: Personal injury crashes dropped by 15%, and crime rates saw statistically significant declines. The agency successfully demonstrated that traffic safety and crime control are not separate missions, but synergistic ones.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Analyst Capability: Ensure crime analysts are trained in DDACTS mapping (or use free tools provided by IADLEST/NHTSA).
  2. Officer Buy-in: Explain to officers that this is not a “ticket quota” but a crime suppression tactic. Focus on stops and visibility as the metric, not citations.49
  3. Feedback Loops: Share success data (crime drops) with patrol shifts weekly to maintain motivation.

8. Downstream Cost Avoidance: Co-Responder Models

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

Police are increasingly the default responders to mental health crises, a role for which they are expensive and often ill-equipped. These calls are fiscally draining: they often result in long wait times at Emergency Rooms (ERs) for medical clearance or repeat arrests of the same individuals (“frequent flyers”) who cycle through the jail system. This “criminalization of mental illness” is an inefficient use of the justice system.54

Co-responder models—pairing a sworn officer with a licensed mental health clinician—generate ROI through “cost avoidance.” By resolving incidents on-scene or diverting subjects to social services, the agency avoids the hard costs of booking, jailing, and ER security details, and the soft costs of liability from use-of-force incidents.55

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  • Ride-Along Model: Clinician and officer ride in the same car.
  • Mobile Crisis Team: Clinicians respond independently to “safe” calls, or join police on request.
  • Virtual Co-Response: Officers use tablets to connect a subject with a remote psychiatrist for assessment (low cost, high reach).

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Louisville Metro Police Department, Kentucky

The Challenge: The agency needed to justify the expense of its Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) and diversion programs.55

The Intervention: A nine-year longitudinal cost-benefit analysis.

The Result: The study found that while the program cost ~$2.4 million annually (training, salaries), it generated $3.4 million in annual savings through deferred hospitalizations and reduced jail bookings. The net annual savings exceeded $1 million. This provides a concrete fiscal argument for “social work” policing.

Mid-Sized Canadian City Study

The Challenge: High officer wait times at hospital ERs for mental health apprehensions.56

The Intervention: Implementation of a “Brief Mental Health Screener” and co-response protocols.

The Result: Involuntary hospital referrals dropped by 30%. Officer wait times at the ER decreased significantly. The study calculated a savings of $81 per averted ER visit. While the unit cost is small, across thousands of annual calls, the aggregate savings in officer-hours is substantial.

Denver Police Department, Colorado (STAR Program)

The Challenge: High volume of low-acuity welfare calls.57

The Intervention: The STAR program dispatches a medic and clinician instead of police to low-risk calls.

The Result: In its pilot phase, STAR handled 748 calls with zero arrests and zero police backup requested. This serves as proof of concept that a significant portion of the “police” workload can be successfully offloaded to cheaper, more appropriate responders.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Partnership: Collaborate with county health departments or local hospitals to share the cost of clinicians.54
  2. Dispatch Protocols: Train 911 dispatchers to identify calls eligible for co-response or diversion.
  3. Liability Management: Establish clear protocols for when police must take over (violence, weapons) to manage risk.

9. Force Multiplication: Leveraging Volunteer Corps (VIPS)

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

In a restricted budget environment, volunteers represent the ultimate value proposition: zero-cost labor. A formalized “Volunteers in Police Service” (VIPS) program allows an agency to offload low-risk, high-volume tasks to vetted citizens. This is not about replacing officers, but about freeing them from tasks that do not require a badge.58

For a medium city, a robust volunteer corps can provide the labor equivalent of 2-5 full-time employees (FTEs) for the cost of uniforms and coordination. Volunteers can handle handicap parking enforcement, vacation house checks, fleet maintenance transport, and administrative filing.

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  • Citizens on Patrol (COP): Volunteers in marked vehicles (distinct from patrol cars) acting as eyes and ears.
  • Reserve Officers: Sworn (often retired) officers who volunteer time to maintain their certification. They can handle prisoner transport and special events.60
  • Chaplaincy/Admin: Providing support services that would otherwise fall to sworn command staff.

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Buckhannon Police Department, West Virginia

The Challenge: A small/medium agency needing to maximize presence without budget for new hires.61

The Intervention: Integration of VIPS into core operations, training them alongside officers.

The Result: In 2024, volunteers contributed over 2,108 hours. The department calculated this as a direct labor savings of over $59,000. Volunteers managed traffic control and security checks, allowing the limited number of sworn officers to focus entirely on enforcement and emergency response.

Billings Police Department, Montana

The Challenge: High demand for community engagement and administrative reporting.58

The Intervention: The department maintains 145 active volunteers across five divisions, including a “Crime Prevention Center.”

The Result: The Crime Prevention Center is essentially staffed by the community, for the community. This allows the department to maintain high-touch community services (like bike registration and safety talks) that are typically the first to be cut during budget crunches.

Denver Police Department, Colorado

The Challenge: Need for specialized skills (IT, accounting) that the department could not afford to hire.62

The Intervention: Recruiting volunteers with specific professional backgrounds.

The Result: 282 volunteers contributed nearly 25,000 hours in one year. The value lies not just in the hours, but in the expertise—retired professionals managing logistics or data analysis provides a level of capability that the department could not otherwise access.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Vetting: Implement background checks as rigorous as those for employees to mitigate liability.63
  2. Structure: Appoint a sworn liaison to manage the program. Volunteers need structure and appreciation to remain engaged.
  3. Visual Distinction: Ensure volunteer uniforms and vehicles are clearly distinguishable from sworn police to avoid public confusion.

10. Risk Transfer: Strategic Outsourcing (Jail and Forensics)

Strategic Context and Economic Impact

Medium-sized cities often fall into the “trap of the middle”—trying to maintain full-service capabilities (like a jail or crime lab) without the volume to make them efficient. These facilities carry massive fixed costs and catastrophic liability risks (e.g., in-custody deaths, lab accreditation failures).

Strategic outsourcing involves contracting these functions to entities that have the necessary scale: the County Sheriff (for jail) and private or state labs (for forensics). The ROI here is found in the conversion of unpredictable liability into predictable, fixed line-item expenses.64

Operational Mechanics and Best Practices

  • Jail Outsourcing: Close the municipal detention facility. Convert the space to a temporary “intake and transfer” holding area. Contract with the County Sheriff for long-term housing (per diem rate).66
  • Forensic Outsourcing: Maintain basic CSI (photos, latent prints) in-house but outsource complex DNA, Toxicology, and Digital Forensics to accredited private labs. This avoids the multimillion-dollar cost of maintaining lab accreditation.67

Agency Case Studies and ROI Analysis

Coweta, Oklahoma

The Challenge: Managing the high liability and fixed staffing costs of a municipal jail.66

The Intervention: The city executed a contract with the Wagoner County Sheriff to house prisoners.

The Result: The city pays a fixed rate of $58.75 per day per prisoner. This eliminated the need for 24/7 jail staffing, food service, and medical contracts. The city effectively transferred the risk of inmate medical issues and lawsuits to the county, stabilizing its public safety budget.

Maryland State Police (Forensics Model)

The Challenge: Massive backlogs in DNA and toxicology were delaying court cases.67

The Intervention: A hybrid model of in-house testing and strategic outsourcing to private labs.

The Result: Cost analysis showed that for high-complexity/high-volume testing (like DNA backlog reduction), outsourcing was a necessary pressure valve. For a medium city, this validates the decision not to build a lab. The cost per case of outsourcing is often lower than the amortized cost of building and staffing a private facility.

“Contract Cities” in California

The Challenge: Many medium-sized cities (e.g., Santa Clarita, Lakewood) seek to avoid the overhead of a police department entirely.68

The Intervention: Contracting all police services from the County Sheriff.

The Result: Studies indicate these cities often spend significantly less per capita on policing. While a full contract might be extreme for an established department, contracting for specific high-liability services (SWAT, Air Support, Jail) is a proven method to access Tier-1 capabilities at a fraction of the cost.

Implementation Roadmap

  1. Cost-Benefit Analysis: Compare the fully loaded daily cost of the municipal jail (including liability insurance and medical) against the county’s per diem rate.
  2. Contract Negotiation: Ensure the contract includes “indemnification” clauses to protect the city from lawsuits arising from county jail operations.66
  3. Logistics: Establish a transport shuttle to move prisoners to the county facility efficiently, using CSOs or Transport Vans rather than patrol cars.

Strategic Summary Table

The following table synthesizes the ten strategies, identifying their primary mechanism of value and providing referenceable peer agencies.

#StrategyPrimary Mechanism of ValuePeer Agency Examples
1False Alarm ReductionRevenue/Cost Recovery: Fines & reduced dispatch load.Marietta (GA), Broken Arrow (OK), Seattle (WA)
212-Hour Shift ScheduleOperational Efficiency: Reduced OT, improved coverage.Lincoln (NE), Fayetteville (NC), Troy (OH)
3CivilianizationLabor Arbitrage: Lower cost staff for non-sworn roles.Mesa (AZ), Virginia Beach (VA), Seattle (WA)
4RegionalizationEconomies of Scale: Sharing high-cost infrastructure.Northern York Regional (PA), Ashby (MA)
5Differential ResponseDemand Reduction: Diverting reports to online/phone.Portland (OR), Syracuse (NY), Houston (TX)
6Fleet ElectrificationTCO Reduction: Lower fuel and maintenance costs.Fremont (CA), Hingham (MA), Bargersville (IN)
7DDACTS DeploymentPrecision Deployment: Data-driven resource allocation.Shawnee (KS), Cleburne (TX), Baltimore Co. (MD)
8Co-Responder ModelDiversion: Reducing jail/ER costs & time-on-call.Louisville (KY), Denver (CO), Canada (Mid-Sized)
9Volunteer Corps (VIPS)Force Multiplication: Free labor for low-risk tasks.Buckhannon (WV), Billings (MT), Denver (CO)
10Strategic OutsourcingLiability Transfer: Moving Jail/Forensics to County.Coweta (OK), Contract Cities (CA), Maryland State Police

Conclusion

The path to fiscal sustainability for the medium-sized police department is not found in the simplistic slashing of budgets, which serves only to erode public trust and officer safety. Rather, it is found in structural modernization and strategic resource optimization.

The ten strategies outlined in this report share a common philosophical thread: The sworn police officer is a high-value, high-cost asset that must be deployed exclusively for high-value problems.

  • It is fiscally irresponsible to use a sworn officer to document a stolen lawnmower (Strategy 5).
  • It is operationally inefficient to use a sworn officer to wait for a tow truck (Strategy 3).
  • It is strategically unsound to use a sworn officer to manage a non-violent mental health crisis (Strategy 8).
  • It is economically wasteful to use a sworn officer to respond to a false alarm (Strategy 1).

By systematically stripping away these low-value tasks through technology, civilianization, regulation, and outsourcing, the Police Chief can “manufacture” budget capacity within their existing allocation. This liberated capital can then be reinvested into better pay, training, and equipment for the core mission: fighting violent crime and serving the community. This shift represents the evolution from simply running a police department to leading a public safety enterprise.

Appendix: Strategic Analysis Framework

To ensure the recommendations in this report are both actionable and empirically valid, a structured “Environmental Scan” methodology was employed. This approach mirrors the strategic planning processes used by major law enforcement research bodies.

1. Source Selection and Horizon Scanning

The research prioritized three specific tiers of information to build a comprehensive picture:

  • Tier 1: Professional Standards & Research Bodies: The primary analysis focused on publications from the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), the COPS Office (DOJ), and the National Institute of Justice (NIJ). These sources provide the theoretical and legal foundation for the strategies.
  • Tier 2: Peer Agency Review: A systematic review of “Annual Reports,” “Strategic Plans,” and “Budget Presentations” from comparable medium-sized cities (e.g., Mesa, Lincoln, Marietta) was conducted. These documents are critical as they contain the raw data on savings and implementation nuances often absent in news media.
  • Tier 3: Niche Industry Analysis: The review included trade publications such as Police Chief Magazine, Governing, and Government Fleet. These sources provided specific operational case studies, such as the Tesla pilots or 12-hour shift evaluations.

2. Value vs. Feasibility Filtering

Information gathered was filtered through a matrix designed specifically for the constraints of a medium-sized city.

  • Exclusion Criteria: Strategies requiring massive scale (e.g., NYPD-style counter-terrorism bureaus) or those with negligible fiscal impact (e.g., minor community fundraisers) were excluded.
  • Inclusion Criteria: Strategies were selected based on their ability to demonstrate a clear “Return on Investment” (ROI), “Force Multiplication,” or “Liability Reduction.”

3. Verification of Case Studies

For every recommended strategy, specific agency examples were identified to serve as “Proof of Concept.” The analysis sought to verify:

  • The “Before” State: The specific problem (e.g., high overtime, low retention).
  • The “Intervention”: The specific mechanism of change (e.g., ordinance language, shift pattern).
  • The “After” State: Quantifiable results (e.g., dollar savings, percentage reductions in crime/calls).

4. Synthesis of Insights

The final phase involved synthesizing these data points into executive-level insights. This required moving beyond what was done to understanding why it worked, identifying the second-order effects (e.g., how shift changes impact court overtime) to provide a holistic implementation guide.

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