Metropolitan Police Department: Oversight Hearing on FY2000 and FY2001 Performance

Madame Chair, members of the Committee and guests - I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you this morning to review the Metropolitan Police Department's performance during fiscal year 2000 and the first five months of 2001. With me today are Executive Assistant Chief Terrance Gainer, Executive Director for Corporate Support Eric Coard, and our agency Chief Financial Officer Ronald Gaskins. Other MPDC command staff members are in the audience. As a note to you and to our viewing audience on DC Cable 13, the text of my prepared remarks is available on the Police Department's website - mpdc.dc.gov.

One year ago, when I appeared before this Committee for oversight and budget hearings, I laid out the MPDC's priorities for the coming year. These priorities included:

These were the priorities not just of the Metropolitan Police Department. These were also the priorities incorporated into Mayor Williams's "Scorecard" goals for the year 2000. These were the priorities of the Council, as articulated in both legislative proposals and special reports. And, most importantly, these were priorities of the communities that all of us serve. The message of our residents was loud and clear: they wanted more officers on the street, and they wanted those officers to be trained and equipped to fight crime and engage in real, proactive community policing.

I am pleased to report today that we have made substantial progress on all of these priorities. However, as I will detail later in my testimony, spending pressures on the Department have prevented us from hiring any new officers during the current fiscal year. This not only has caused our sworn headcount to fall. It also has placed tremendous pressures on our overtime budget, as I continue to look for ways to keep officers on the street, fighting crime and practicing community policing.

More Officers on the Street

The Metropolitan Police Department ended fiscal year 2000 with just over 3,650 officers. This represented our highest sworn strength in several years. We actually exceeded our hiring goals during fiscal 2000 through a combination of more effective recruiting, continued strong interest in our lateral-hiring program, and lower-than-anticipated attrition rates.

In addition, we currently have more than 110 candidates - both recruit and lateral hires - who have completed their background investigations and are waiting to be hired. However, spending pressures have precluded the Chief Financial Officer from granting us the authority to move forward with hiring any new officers during the first five months of this fiscal year. As a result, our sworn strength has dropped by nearly 100 officers since the beginning of this fiscal year, as members have left the Department and we have been unable to fill their positions.

I received word late last week that we can now proceed with hiring new officers this month, and we are moving as quickly as possible to make up for lost ground. We will begin by hiring lateral officers first. Their condensed training period means that we can get these officers trained and on the street much more quickly than we can with regular recruit officers. Nevertheless, our inability to hire new officers during the first five months of the current fiscal year means that we will probably not keep pace with attrition and will end the fiscal year with a sworn headcount well below our budgeted level of 3,600 officers.