Consultants’ report criticizes Memphis police and fire staffing practices, employee benefits

Jan. 28--A consultants' report says benefits for city of Memphis employees are too rich, and singles out the large police and fire divisions for particular scrutiny.

The consultants wrote that while base salaries are generally competitive with other cities, workers' benefits are excessive, including lenient sick leave that requires the departments to pay overtime to other workers. They also questioned the staffing levels in the departments.

They propose a wide range of changes, including a freeze in the hiring of new sworn police officers and an increase in hiring of lower-paid civilians, such as police service technicians who could handle items such as crash investigations. The consultants also wrote that the city should consider outsourcing ambulance service.

The report was written by The PFM Group and its local partners and released to the City Council earlier this month. Mayor A C Wharton and his staff are using it to guide the city's financial strategy for the next several years. The city's pension fund faces a large deficit -- $682 million as of July 1, according to the Wharton administration's estimate.

The administration proposes moving new city hires and those with less than 10 years experience toward a 401(k)-style retirement plan and boosting the annual contribution to the pension fund from about $20 million now to about $100 million five years from now.

To find the money to support this increase, the mayor's administration is calling for the City Council to adopt many of the cost-cutting recommendations in the PFM report. The results of the debate over the next several months will impact property-tax levels and city services for years.

Pushback from labor unions is likely.

"Their figures are wrong," said Thomas Malone, president of the Memphis Fire Fighters Association. The union has already hired an expert who concluded that the city's pension shortfall is not as serious as Wharton's administration says.

The police and fire leadership will likely resist budget restrictions. Both police director Toney Armstrong and fire director Alvin D. Benson said in a City Council committee meeting last week that further cuts could hurt the quality of service.

Police and fire are by far the largest city divisions. The police department has about 2,900 budgeted positions, the fire department has about 1,700. Not all positions are filled.

The report says that between 2006 and 2012, the proportion of civilian employees in the police division dropped and the proportion of sworn police officers increased. The consultants said the sworn officers cost more than civilians, and many of them are doing back-office jobs that don't require a sworn officer.

Moreover, the report says hiring more officers does not necessarily cut crime. "The link between the number of police officers and crime rate reduction is, at best, elusive," the consultants wrote.

Memphis Police Association President Michael Williams said last week that there's no sense in comparing high-crime Memphis with more peaceful cities.

The report says different units within the fire department handle vastly different numbers of calls, and that the fire department should reduce staffing in more affluent neighborhoods on the outer rings of the city where there's less demand for services.

The report calls for a buyout program to reduce 150 positions citywide, and it calls for consolidation of police and fire administrative functions to cut costs.

The report also says the number of paid holidays should drop from 13 to 10, that city employees should pay health-insurance deductibles higher than the current maximum of $300, that the city should create a more restrictive sick-leave system, and that it should consider cutting college incentive pay.

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