Potthast says FMPD staffing is a concern

DANGER ZONE

Burlington is down 12 staff, Keokuk is down staff, Lee County was down two the last I heard. If I’m being totally truthful, I could come in here tomorrow and be the only one here.”

Cody Potthast, Fort Madison Chief of Police

NO CRYSTAL BALL

I also want to be realistic and not do something so grand that we can’t live up to it and we can’t perform on a long-term basis. So there are a lot of moving pieces here.”

Laura Liegois, FM City Manager

FORT MADISON – Fort Madison Police Chief Cody Potthast told the City Council earlier this month that he was down about four staff members.
The comment didn’t come across as ominous at the time, but a deeper look shows the police department is off about 20% in staffing and in an unenviable position when it comes to attracting officers.
Potthast said Tuesday the department staffing is a concern.
“Burlington is down staff, Keokuk is down staff, Lee County was down two the last I heard. If I’m being totally truthful, I could come in here tomorrow and be the only one here,” Potthast said.
He said the economics are disheartening, too. Fort Madison’s police and fire pension fund is decent and comparable to the Iowa Public Employees Retirement System, the pension fund that takes care of Iowa’s other public employees in retirement.
But Potthast said current city funding and his budget are not comparable to other cities including Burlington and Keokuk, and Lee County.
“The retirement is about the same, so it comes down to wages when potential officers are deciding where they want to go. And we’re not at the level of those around us.”
Officers were testing over the weekend with Potthast in attendance and he said they had a “rock star” who passed all the tests and written tests with flying colors.
“He was a rock star, did his mile sub 10, did his sit ups and pushups in under 30 seconds and then was contacted by another agency. Now we don’t know if he’ll even finish the process with us. They just have the capability to offer more.”
Potthast said there could be an emergency request for a 10% increase in wages to stop the loss of staff, but the first-year chief and four-year FMPD veteran, said that is a bandage that won’t help in the long-term.
“Others are heading into union negotiations shortly and, if they go up, say 7%, then we’re right back in the same situation.”
He doesn’t favor taking on a life-safety bond or borrowing to prop up the budget because he doesn’t see a way for city revenues to increase enough to justify the cost of the debt.
“I’m conservative in my budget and I don’t think going into debt is the solution here.”
But City Manager Laura Liegois said the situation isn’t one unique to Fort Madison.
“We’re going to go through things that have been very common with other cities and counties. So this isn’t just unique to Fort Madison,” she said.
“I went through some of this at my last place. It was much smaller there, but we had to figure out what it was going to take to retain the good officers we have and encourage getting new people to be with us.”
Liegois said union negotiations are coming up, so she couldn’t go deep into what a prediction could look like.
“Yeah, he’s in a pinch. It’s a pinch when staff needs time off. It’s a pinch when we have something big happen. Those are things that are very trying on a department,” she said.
“And it’s a very competitive field to get good officers. It’s not the most glamorous job. These are conversations we’re going to have to have going into budget talks. What’s it going to take for us to be in this competitive field of getting qualified candidates, while retaining our current staff?”
Liegois said Potthast made a good case to the City Council two weeks ago and wants to build people in his department with some new ideas to create energy around the department for retention. But she said last year she had to cut $500,000 out of the budget to balance it.
She said wages are at the forefront of conversations going on with all staff.
“Wages are something that I know are in discussions at every city level. My managers and I talk about these things all the time, but we have no crystal ball here. We don’t know what the (Iowa) legislature it going to do next with our property taxes,” she said.
“I also want to be realistic and not do something so grand that we can’t live up to it and we can’t perform on a long-term basis. So there are a lot of moving pieces here.”
Fort Madison Mayor Matt Mohrfeld, who’s in his final term as mayor, agreed with Liegois saying FMPD isn’t going through this in a vacuum.
“First of all, we have to recognize that this doesn’t make him any different than any other industry in southeast iowa or the Midwest,” Mohrfeld said.
“We know the days of putting up a sign out front and having people line up at 7:30 in the morning for a job is over.”
Mohrfeld said hiring and retention is a bigger part of management than it’s ever been, but said Potthast is young and enthusiastic about the department and any answer for compensation is difficult.
“I don’t know, but is this going to change how we deliver public safety moving forward?” he asked.
“This is philosophical, but is this where we have reached a point where we’re going to start seeing some consolidation of policing our communities? We have slowly given the police department a bigger piece of the pie even though not much bigger, but every year, that means something else has to get smaller. And nobody wants anything to get smaller.”
Potthast said that Fort Madison’s starting wage is lower than other agencies in southeast Iowa, but Mohrfeld said it can just be a conversation around wages.
“You gotta look at total compensation, you've got to overlay retirement, you have to overlay health benefits, you have to overlay time off, and so you can't just compare $24.00 to $23,” Mohrfeld said.