Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul was planning to meet this afternoon with officials in the city-parish finance department to determine exactly how much a proposed efficiency study could save the BRPD.
According to a draft of the report first reported last month in Daily Report, implementing the proposed changes would not only get more officers out on the street but would potentially save millions of dollars a year—some of which could be used for officer pay raises.
Though the draft report suggested the BRPD could save as much as $10 million a year if all the changes are implemented, Paul has said a more realistic estimate is between $5 million and $6 million annually.
The finance department has been reviewing the draft since it became available in January to determine how much in savings could realistically be allocated later this year to pay for officer pay raises.
The report, which was done by Cincinnati-based Management Partners Inc., calls for “rightsizing,” the 698-member department and reallocating officers from special operations units to the districts, which would effectively put more boots on the ground.
It also calls for using less costly civilians rather than armed officers to perform staff fleet management and telephone operations, and to change certain overtime policies.
Paul says the BRPD has not moved forward yet with the implementation because it first needs to meet with the finance department to finalize the numbers. He also needs to meet with commanders in the department and union leaders.
“The next step is to go back to my staff and go over recommendations in the report, all 54 of them, each one in detail,” he says. “Some we’ll move forward on. Some, we’ll have to park them.”
He acknowledges some of the more controversial elements of the plan may not ever be implemented, but he says the study, itself, is an important first step.
In 2019, Management Partners did a similar study for city-parish government that identified as much as $7 million a year in potential savings. Some of the suggestions in the report are currently in the process of being implemented.
