BY THE NUMBERS* $1.5 million: Cost of city's take-home cars* $580,000: Amount city hopes to recoup by charging for take-home cars* 351: Police officers with take-home cars* 260: Police officers parking their carsSource: Chattanooga
A parking plan has yet to be implemented for police officers who want to leave their patrol cars before they go home.
"We've kind of had a little snow," Mayor Ron Littlefield said last week.
The city implemented a policy Thursday to charge police officers who take their patrol cars home.
Those who live within city limits will pay 20 cents a mile and those outside will pay 30 cents a mile.
Ninety-one of the city's 351 police officers who have take-home cars said they would pay, city records show.
The remaining 260 will park their cars, and the city administration is scrambling because there's not enough room at the police services center on Amnicola Highway.
Richard Beeland, spokesman for Littlefield, said Friday the parking plan would be out "early next week."
Detective Phil Grubb, president of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers local, said he has heard rumblings from a few officers who originally planned on paying but now say they will park their cars.
But in the first few days of the policy, most police officers took their cars home, he said, and it had nothing to do with snow.
"They don't have a secure place to put them," he said.
If not for that, the snow would have hindered police response last week, he said.
Officers without four-wheel-drive vehicles or snow tires on their personal vehicles would have had trouble getting in to pick up their patrol cars, which have snow tires, he said.
"The snow would have kept officers at home," Grubb said.
Across the southeast
Littlefield and some City Council members have said there's not much that can be done to fix the take-home car issue this fiscal year. Charging for the cars could help recoup about $580,000 of the $1.5 million it costs to run the take-home car program, officials have said.
The mayor has said he would support free use of take-home cars for police officers who live in the city in the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.
Other municipal police departments in Tennessee and the Southeast have take-home car programs. The Knoxville Police Department allows take-home cars for anyone who lives within 25 miles of police headquarters. The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department allows take-home cars within Davidson County.
The Greenville, S.C., Police Department allows officers to take home cars as long as the police officer lives within 10 miles of the county line.
Sgt. Jason Rampey, spokesman for Greenville police, said he understands the need of cities to look at budget cuts.
"Everything is on the table when you're looking at budget cuts," he said. "We've just chosen to cut in different ways."
Spokesmen for all three police departments called take-home cars a public safety issue and a deterrent to crime.
They also said allowing take-home cars helps maintain the fleet, since the cars are not constantly used by rotating shifts.
A study of crime
Hubert Williams, president of the nationwide advocacy group Police Foundation, said the issue of take-home cars is all about taxpayer money. A 1976 Police Foundation study in Kansas City, Mo., showed that patrol cars traveling randomly on streets do not deter crime, he said.
"The overall consideration is the cost," he said.
Studies show that foot patrols are actually more effective because seeing a police officer in person will prevent someone from committing a crime, he said. An officer in a car only deters the crime until the officer is out of sight, he said.
Grubb said that's true, but also impractical. There could not be enough police officers hired to walk every Chattanooga road, he said.
Littlefield said last week he did not support parking the patrol cars because "there is an expense involved."
He said he would like to have an aggressive program to get officers to live within the city. But he also acknowledged that there is some truth to the Kansas City study.
"There are thieves out there that will break into a police car," he said.