That calzone you just ordered from The Cellar just got a little more expensive. Blacksburg Town Council just unanimously approved a $72 million budget for 2008-2009. The budget included a one percent increase in the meals tax, and utility bills will increase by just under $5.
I wrote about this last month, and surmised that a one percent increase in the meals tax would pay the salaries of as many as ten new police officers. The new budget will increase the police force by four officers, one dispatcher, and a downtown cleaning crew. Great! But look at the disparity between similar VA communities – Charlottesville and Harrisonburg.
| Community | Population | Officers | Jurisdiction |
07-08 Budget | 2007 Calls For Service |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blacksburg | 39,284 | 62 | 19.5 Square Miles | $6.3 million | 21,568 |
| Charlottesville | 40,315 | 117 | 10.4 Square Miles | $12.7 million | 49,689 |
| Harrisonburg | 40,885 | 87 | 17 Square Miles | $7.6 million | 34,009 |
At first glance, you see that Blacksburg has the smallest population, the smallest number of officers, the smallest budget and the smallest number of calls. Great. It’s an average of 350 calls a year, per officer. One of my concerns is the size of the Town, however – a larger Town footprint means it takes longer for an officer to get to a call. More officers means you can have more cars on the road, and reduce the response time per call. Chief Crannis says that Blacksburg has been efficient with what they’ve had, and I’d agree with that, but I’d argue that we could be even more efficient. WIth almost identical populations and comparable jurisdictions, why does the budget lag so far behind? With an increased budget, maybe our cops could actually have a laptop IN the car, so they can get real-time data from the car?
Just a thought. I’m pleased with our community here, and our high quality of life. I want to see that continue, and I wonder what improvements we could make to ensure we continue to enjoy this special place for years to come.
* Sources – 2006 U.S. Census population estimates, Blacksburg Police Department, Charlottesville Police Department, Harrisonburg Police Department, The Roanoke Times
If you enjoyed this post, why not leave a comment and subscribe via RSS or email here to be sure you don’t miss the next post?
I LOVE that you checked all of this, Darla! I went through much of the same thought process, that the university provides the bulk of Town “residents”, and that there’s an overlap there. In the end it’s very difficult to judge what Town residency truly is – if you go to Census.gov they say 39,284, if you go to Blacksburg’s web site they say 43000 residents in 2005 … and then you have the students who are counted as students, but actually live here full-time.
All things being equal, there still seems to be a disconnect, particularly in the amount of area being covered per officer. Ultimately, this equates to – among other things – longer response times and fewer officers on the street per square mile. If we talked with an officer currently serving, I wonder what they’d say about their staffing situation?
I LOVE that you checked all of this, Darla! I went through much of the same thought process, that the university provides the bulk of Town “residents”, and that there’s an overlap there. In the end it’s very difficult to judge what Town residency truly is – if you go to Census.gov they say 39,284, if you go to Blacksburg’s web site they say 43000 residents in 2005 … and then you have the students who are counted as students, but actually live here full-time.
All things being equal, there still seems to be a disconnect, particularly in the amount of area being covered per officer. Ultimately, this equates to – among other things – longer response times and fewer officers on the street per square mile. If we talked with an officer currently serving, I wonder what they’d say about their staffing situation?
Your figure of 39,000+ population in Blacksburg is skewed. I checked, and 29,000 of those are college students. Tech has its own police department with 41 full time officers, plus other part-timers. They field more than 20,000 calls per year, which is about 488 calls per full time officer, per year.
That leaves a population of 10,000 or so being policed by the 62 officers. Granted, there is some overlap in policing between the campus and the town. But I think a true analysis of the budget requires you take into account Tech’s police force as well. Also, you should consider the land mass that is the campus when computing your land area for call coverage purposes, and consider that Tech’s force covers that area.
After I thought about this, I looked at UVA (Charlottesville) and JMU (Harrisonburg) as well. UVA has 60 full time police officers to police its 20,000 students. JMU has 24 full time officers for 16,000 students.
If you include the full-time campus police officers in your total, it becomes:
103 police in Blacksburg
177 Charlottesville
111 Harrisonburg
NOW do the math. It might come out to a similar result, but I think it’s food for thought. We live in a unique area with unique needs, and with a transient college population, I don’t consider the town as actually having a “population” of 39,000; I always think of it as 10,000 permanent residents and 29,000 students. And in that scenario, including the campus police when you think about the impact of the town’s police budget might make sense.
Your figure of 39,000+ population in Blacksburg is skewed. I checked, and 29,000 of those are college students. Tech has its own police department with 41 full time officers, plus other part-timers. They field more than 20,000 calls per year, which is about 488 calls per full time officer, per year.
That leaves a population of 10,000 or so being policed by the 62 officers. Granted, there is some overlap in policing between the campus and the town. But I think a true analysis of the budget requires you take into account Tech’s police force as well. Also, you should consider the land mass that is the campus when computing your land area for call coverage purposes, and consider that Tech’s force covers that area.
After I thought about this, I looked at UVA (Charlottesville) and JMU (Harrisonburg) as well. UVA has 60 full time police officers to police its 20,000 students. JMU has 24 full time officers for 16,000 students.
If you include the full-time campus police officers in your total, it becomes:
103 police in Blacksburg
177 Charlottesville
111 Harrisonburg
NOW do the math. It might come out to a similar result, but I think it’s food for thought. We live in a unique area with unique needs, and with a transient college population, I don’t consider the town as actually having a “population” of 39,000; I always think of it as 10,000 permanent residents and 29,000 students. And in that scenario, including the campus police when you think about the impact of the town’s police budget might make sense.