EAST HAVEN -- The Board of Finance Wednesday night approved a third transfer of funds -- $150,000 -- to satisfy Police Department overtime demands in the wake of the U.S. Department of Justice consent decree, potentially bringing the total bill for the current fiscal year to roughly $875,000.
Officials also are bracing for additional costs next fiscal year, as the Finance Board unanimously authorized borrowing $2.5 million to continue with the town's implementation of the consent decree.
The meeting took a little over a half-hour with very little discussion. The Town Council still must approve the transfers at an upcoming meeting.
The money will be moved over from line items originally meant for town needs like traffic signs, car repairs and equipment maintenance. The largest chunk, however, came in the form of $107,000 worth of wages.
Previously, the Finance Board approved $75,000 and $150,000 transfers, although the second has not yet been approved by Town Council.
The town previously projected the police overtime budget to top out at $500,000 for the current fiscal year, but that amount had been expended by late December.
The consent decree, a document prompted by allegations of racial profiling and mistreatment of Latinos in town, mandates the Police Department must submit to training aimed at creating bias-free policing. The department has to pay officers for overtime work to cover man-hours lost to training.
"I'm not going to say it's going to get us to the end of the road," interim Police Chief Brent Larrabee said when asked if he thought this would be the final overtime transfer.
In December Larrabee estimated the final overtime tally would top $800,000.
The previous fiscal year saw the department pay $892,000 in overtime, although Larrabee has said the actual amount was closer to $600,000 when figuring in reimbursements for various private details and hurricane-related work.
Larrabee also noted there is a new challenge with the June 21 deadline to meet training requirements.
The chief said he is worried about officers who still have vacation days left and how that might affect scheduling.
Larrabee said the department has a "use-it-or-lose-it" rule, meaning personnel must use up their days by the start of the next fiscal year on July 1. It takes 40 hours to train each officer.
"It's an extraordinary amount of training in such a short amount of time," he said. "But we're confident we can make it."
The town signed the Department of Justice consent degree in November. The 54-page legally binding document outlines changes and regulations needed in the department and landed following an investigation into a police racial profiling scandal resulting in the arrests of four officers.
Officers David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo and Sgt. John Miller were arrested following a two-year FBI and U.S. Department of Justice probe. Cari, Zullo and Miller have retired, while Spaulding remains on paid administrative leave.
Zullo, who pleaded guilty in a different case to one count of obstruction of justice last October, will not be sentenced until after the trials of Cari and Spaulding conclude. The trial originally was to begin April 8, but officials have said it might not begin until September.
Miller took a plea deal and pleaded guilty to one count of using excessive force. He awaits sentencing, but likely will avoid jail time.
Copyright 2013 - New Haven Register, Conn.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
