Good morning everyone. I would like to call to order
this public hearing of the judiciary committee on the
judiciary and public safety. I am council member brooke pinto
representing ward two and chairwoman of the committee.
the time is 9:54 a.m. On wednesday, april 29th, 2026.
we are conducting this hearing in person in room 412 of the
john wilson building and streaming virtually on the dc
council's website and youtube, and x at at brooke pinto.
today, the committee will continue its review of mayor
bowser's proposed fiscal year 2027 budget and financial plan
with a round of hearings on agency budgets.
today, we're discussing the office of unified communications
and the metropolitan police department.
first, we're going to hear from our public witnesses to discuss
the office of unified communications, or ouc.
after we hear and then we're going to hear from our public
witnesses to discuss mpd. After we hear from all of our
public witnesses for both agencies, we'll then turn to
director heather mcgaffin of ou c, ou c is responsible for
providing fast, professional and cost effective response to
emergency and non-emergency calls in the district.
ouc was established in 2005 to combine the emergency 911
non-emergency and 311 call activities from the metropolitan
police department, fire and emergency medical services and
customer service operations. The mayor's proposed fy 2027
operating budget provides ouc with approximately $60.2
million, which is a 4.5 million or 7% decrease from the fy 26
approved budget. The agency's capital budget also
decreases from 13.8 million to 9.4 million, just over 31%
reduction. At the same time, the budget
reduces total agency ftes from 425 to 413 shifts, a significant
number. Of vacancy savings.
these are crucial and difficult jobs.
uc's call takers and dispatchers, supervisors and
technical staff are responsible for maintaining the district's
emergency and non-emergency communication system every hour
of every day. I was concerned to read in
recent office of the inspector general report that was released
earlier this month, that we still have several ongoing
issues in the agency related to chronic absenteeism, lack of
cross training for mpd and ems operations, and improving
quality assurance. Since some of these concerns
also have a budget nexus. I'll be curious today to learn
about whether the agency is equipped to meet and improve
these ongoing concerns. I look forward to discussing
with director mcgaffin how his budget will give the agency what
it needs to maintain service levels, continue filling
vacancies, support retention and ensure that the 911 call center
is fully and reliably staffed. To address some of the outlining
issues identified in the oig report.
I also want to discuss the proposed reductions and shifting
within nine one and 311 operations, including what
impact, if any, those changes will have on call wait times,
dispatch capacity, overtime and staff workload.
finally, I look forward to discussing the mayor's proposed
subtitles and the broader fund shifts recommended in this
budget, including the movement of personnel costs from local
funds to special purpose revenue funds, and the impacts that
would be make on our hotel fee. We will then hear from the
metropolitan police department or mpd.
mpd's mission is to safeguard the district of columbia and
protect its residents and visitors with the highest regard
for the sanctity of human life. Mpd strives to accomplish its
mission with a focus on service, integrity and fairness by
upholding the district's motto, justitia omnibus justice for
all. Currently, mpd sworn officer
numbers remain at a 50 year staffing low.
I'm eager today to hear about how the proposed fy 27 budget
supports continued efforts to bolster our recruitment and
retain our quality sworn officers for the department.
we must continue the successful efforts to drive down violent
crime like the one that we've seen.
the overall decrease of 29% from 2024 to 2025, and overall, 53%
decrease we've seen over the last two years.
the proposed budget has an overall increase in funding for
mpd, but no additional ftes allocated, largely due to more
accurately funding for overtime. I look forward to hearing about
how this funding will support the department's ongoing
initiatives that continue to result in reduced levels of
violent crime, support our staffing and include a notable
43% decrease in homicides in 2026 so far compared to this
time last year. Concerningly though, we've seen
a 35% increase in assaults with a dangerous weapon, and we've
seen increases in domestic violence cases.
it's also vital to ensure that mpd facilities are properly
maintained and updated to serve all corners of the district.
I look forward to asking interim chief carol about the capital
projects related to these efforts, and how the financial
plan supports the continued investments we need to pursue
public safety. I also want to note that we have
had a particularly violent month, including children who
were shot just last night. And as we look at this budget,
we have to ensure that all of our public safety agencies have
the funding that they need to play their role in keeping
everyone safe. And so when we continue to push
on the staffing levels at mpd, that is an important piece of
the puzzle and ensuring that not only everyone can be safe, but
we're also not overworking our officers, which then leads to
burnout. And then more overtime.
first, we're going to hear today from our public witnesses.
for oh, you see, as a reminder, all of our public witnesses will
have three minutes to present their testimony.
and for our virtual public witnesses, when I call your name
as a reminder to please accept our invitation to join as a
panelist. All right.
with that, we will turn to our public witnesses.
lisa abrams. Veronica mosqueda.
chairperson, troop d patel and makayla deming.
welcome to you all. And we will begin with lisa
abrams, vice president of government affairs for the hotel
association of washington, d.c. Good morning.
chairperson pinto and members and staff of the committee.
I'm lisa abrams, vice president of government affairs of the
hotel association, washington, d.c. I'm here to testify in
opposition to title three, subtitle a of the fiscal year
2027 budget support act, which is the public services hotel
occupancy fee amendment act of 2025.
this subtitle seeks to impose a tax upon all hotels of $0.80 per
room or suite rental per night. Hotels already contribute
heavily to the district's coffers, including already
paying into the e-911 special purpose revenue fund, with a tax
on all of their landlines, as well as for each cell phone that
it has for their employees. This is the fifth time that the
mayor has proposed this tax on our industry.
first, in 2017, again in 2019, 2024 and 2025, and now this
year. Our opposition to this tax
remains unchanged. As we have continuously stated,
it is not clear why the hotel industry has been repeatedly
targeted to impose this tax. The correlation between the
proposed bed tax and our industry continues to be murky.
the e-911 special purpose revenue fund was created to help
defray 911 technology and equipment costs for ouc.
however, the agency has continuously used the fund for
non-technology purposes, such as personnel travel, training and
contractual costs. Moreover, the mayor's intent to
have the monies for this additional tax deposited into
the general fund to use for other purposes.
this clearly is not what the fund was created for.
it is also unreasonable to burden the hotel industry with a
tax to support a government agency whose core function is
not related to travel. The proposed tax will have a
significant impact on group bookings and make the district
less competitive against other destinations.
the hotel industry is one of the highest taxed industries in the
district by far. Last fiscal year, at a tax rate
of 15.95%, the hotel tax generated $408 million.
this makes up 19.5% of all sales tax collections for the
district. Travelers to the city spend
billions of dollars, creating a significant amount of tax
revenue for the district. We are at a crucial point in our
political landscape where federal rhetoric and policies
are creating barriers to travel to the district.
the city has experienced a downturn in tourism, and the
city should be implementing policies that would attract
visitors, attracting more visitors.
visitors means more visitors spending and more money for the
district. If the district wants to be the
premier global convention, tourism and special events
destination, the taxes imposed on transient rentals should not
be arbitrary. This tax could serve to have a
negative impact, causing decreased revenue for the city.
thank you. Thank you very much.
veronica mosqueda, organizer, decrim poverty.
dc. Hi.
good morning. My name is veronica mosqueda and
I am here as co-founder of seating stories, an anchor
organization of the decrim poverty coalition.
I am here to urge the council to invest in a comprehensive
non-police crisis response system that prioritizes care,
dignity and a public health over carceral responses.
decrim poverty's core mission is to replace carceral systems with
harm reduction oriented systems of care that promote the
dignity, autonomy and health of all people pushed to the margins
and dc. Personally, I come from a social
work background, a direct service provider background.
like I said, I'm a community organizer and I'm an active
community member. I have been on the front lines
of crisis response, crisis, mental health crisis responses.
and what I can tell you is that police officers are often the
default responders to mental health crises, despite not being
trained clinicians or health professionals.
the consequences of this are that people with serious mental
illness are almost 12 times more likely to experience police use
of force. 1 in 4 individuals with mental
health conditions has a history of arrest.
both of these exacerbate mental health symptoms and systemic
inequality, especially for black and brown people in our city.
redirecting funds toward crisis response teams for mental health
crises and drugs and drug use will create real safety and a
healthier city for us all. We urge the dc council to direct
funds toward evidence based programs, not towards systems
that incarcerate, traumatize and harm community members.
our coalition has data and recommendations to share on
crisis response teams, but I want to speak on how dc currents
model over relies on police due to a flawed 911 diversion
system. The research highlights that the
ways that 911 operators classify and route calls determines
outcomes, and on the ground in dc, 911, calls are not even tied
to crisis response teams, so there isn't an opportunity to
divert calls directly. That would be better handled by
crt instead of police. We can see out of the 1.4
million calls to 911, only 870 were diverted to 988 last year.
the consequences of calling the wrong responder can be deadly
and has been deadly, as was the case for clifford brooks, who
was shot and killed during a mental health crisis in 2024.
interactions with the police perpetuate trauma and what
people experiencing mental health crises and their loved
ones need is agency, professional support and
responsive and well-funded programs in their care.
additionally, we need to follow the evidence and authorize 24
over seven harm reduction centers.
that includes safe consumption and drug checking programing.
this would offer people a safe place to receive life saving
services that are evidence to help people access life changing
services, while avoiding preventable overdose deaths.
when allocating resources, we need to invest in community
based, responsive, comprehensive and harm reduction centered
models that give people agency over their bodies and their care
plan. In dc, several nonprofit
organizations are well positioned to lead our partner
in this work. Grassroots organizations are
connected to the community that will also support.
and. These groups already have
trusted relationships and cultural competence that
government systems lack. Dc has an opportunity to lead
the nation in building a crisis response and harm reduction
system that reflects our values care over punishment, health
over enforcement and community over coercion.
thank you very much. Chairperson patel, commissioner
from a and c to a good morning. Chair pinto, members of the
committee on judiciary and public safety.
thank you for holding this performance oversight hearing
and for the opportunity to enter my testimony into the official
record. My name is patel, and I'm a
fourth term advisory neighborhood commissioner
representing single member district 203 in the historic
foggy bottom. And I serve as the chair of anc
two. A.
I am testifying regarding the performance of the metropolitan
police department during 2025 and into 2026.
I want to be clear, at the onset, effective policing
depends not only on enforcement but on public trust, data
integrity and accountability. Over the past year, all three
have been seriously tested. A police department cannot
function effectively when integrity is subordinated to
optics. As mpd moves forward under new
leadership, this committee must assess whether reforms are
structural or merely cosmetic. These concerns are especially
urgent given the scale of public investment under the mayor's fy
2027 proposed budget, mpd is slated to receive approximately
$688.5 million in gross funds, including roughly $674.5 million
in local funds, representing a significant increase over prior
years. Let me be clear, councilwoman.
the slogan you hear in the streets no justice, no peace.
the venerable monk broke it down.
he said that we wouldn't have to say that if communities actually
felt a sense of peace. Communities don't feel a sense
of police with police there because they're not protecting
them. They're agitating them.
they're harming them. So to increase the funding to an
instrument using my tax dollars, where communities are harmed is
not acceptable. I call for a reallocation of
services. Critical core agencies at such
as ouc and mpd have not been effective, and it's been a real
disappointment to see my tax dollars being used that way.
we already are occupied by the national guard.
once again, taxpayers are paying over $1 million a day to feel
safe. We don't feel safer in our city.
if anything, we're just made to feel more unwanted in the place
we call home. And so I want to end that.
public safety is strongest when communities view police as
legitimate partners, not unaccountable institutions.
rebuilding trust will require honest data.
independent, independent verification, transparent
discipline processes, and transparent and sustained
engagement, especially in communities most impacted by
crime and policing. In closing, I urge this
committee and the council, the district of columbia, to demand
the four things independent verification of crime data and
reporting practices, clear accountability for misconduct
and mismanagement, full transparency in complaint
handling and discipline, and measurable budget linked
progress toward rebuilding public trust oversight is not
anti-police. It's pro accountability, pro
transparency, and essential to effective public safety.
thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I'm happy to answer
any questions. And I'd rather you allocate the
funding to the office of attorney general for the
divisions of worker rights and consumer protection.
thank you. Thank you, chair patel.
michaela deming, policy director, dc coalition against
domestic violence. Thank you, chair pinto and staff
for the opportunity to testify. My name is michaela deming.
I'm the policy director with the dc coalition against domestic
violence, the federally recognized statewide coalition
of domestic violence service providers here in dc that serve
upwards of a thousand victims of domestic violence on any given
day across all eight wards of the district.
we must sustain core programing and services for survivors of
domestic violence and feel critical funding gaps for
survivors and targeted communities.
survivors need more resources and services, not less, but
proposed cuts to domestic violence and victim services is
reduced. Survivors access to life saving
services and housing at a time. As you mentioned, when domestic
violence homicides have spiked despite violent crime and
homicide dropping across d.c., the district cannot afford to
abandon survivors and their families at this time.
their lives depend on these essential services.
the mayor stated that funding for public safety must be
preserved to keep up the overall progress.
to drive down crime citywide. We urge council to do just that.
restore the $6.3 million in cuts to domestic violence and victim
services and ofsted and dhs, and provide an additional 4.4
million over fy 26 levels to sustain current services and
fill critical gaps for survivors and targeted communities.
as federal policies continue to create concern for many and
threaten the safety and stability of our most vulnerable
communities. Adequate local funding is
necessary to fill critical gaps for our marginalized neighbors,
including immigrants, people of color, lgbtq plus individuals,
unhoused individuals, those reentering from periods of
incarceration and their families.
the broader social safety net is also a lifeline for survivors in
crisis. Yet the budget includes
devastating cuts to child care subsidies and workers pay, paid
family leave and medical leave, snap and tanf benefits, legal
representation, emergency rental assistance, removing the very
resources necessary for domestic violence survivors and their
families to become independent from their abusers, puts lives
at risk and undermines broader community safety.
in contrast, mpd sees a 15% larger budget than the mayor's
proposal, an increase of over 89 million.
we could achieve greater community safety by preserving
and investing that $89 million into $10 million for victim
services, 1.9 million to fill critical gaps for domestic
violence services, 27.3 million for access to justice, 685,000
to restore cuts to the dhs line for domestic violence.
and we'd still have nearly $40 million left over to fund more
essential services like restoring all of the cuts to dhs
economic security programs, or restoring all the cuts to family
services and homeless services and dhs.
we join the van request to fund victim services at 59.6 million
and protect the entire ofs portfolio and stand in
solidarity with a fair budget coalition, lgbtq plus budget
coalition and the dc justice lab in their platforms.
despite the recent press conference calling attention to
increasing lethal domestic violence, no movement has been
made to ensure all survivors have equal access to law
enforcement. D.c. Code.
section 24-211.07 must be amended to protect victim and
witness information from immigration enforcement threats.
until that happens, immigrant and immigrant survivors will
continue to feel unsafe. Calling mpd or benefiting from
any of the over half billion dollars their budget includes.
thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I'm happy to answer
questions. Great.
thank you very much, miss deming.
thank you all for your testimony.
appreciate it. We're going to call our next
panel, gregory pemberton. Joey ferguson.
gregory sakas. Ashley anderson.
great. Welcome to you all.
thank you. We will begin with gregory
pemberton, president of the dc police union.
thank you, chair chairwoman. Good afternoon, members of the
committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify as
president of the dc police union.
I speak on behalf of approximately 2800 sworn police
officers, detectives and sergeants who serve this
community as members of the metropolitan police department.
I've been providing testimony in these hearings for years
highlighting the alarming decrease in staffing year over
year and the exponential increases in overtime usage to
make up for these shortages. My testimony today is that the
mpd remains in dire condition. The mandatory overtime usage is
beyond abusive members. Days off are regularly canceled
with little or no notice, and unexpected holdovers have become
the norm. Mpd facilities are disrepair
with nonfunctional bathrooms, mold infested locker rooms, and
dilapidated buildings that endanger officer health and
morale. Compounding these issues, our
fleet of vehicles and more specifically, the lack of
urgency at our repair shop is impeding our operations even
further. These vehicle shortages and
availability issues directly impact response times, officer
safety and operational effectiveness across every
district. Staffing losses mpd have
experienced have predictably continued in the past six years.
the mpd has gone from 3800 officers to 3150 every year
since 2019. The average net loss of sworn
members is more than 100 this fiscal year.
the most recent reporting period.
mpd continues to lose far more officers than it has hired.
the union believes the most pressing matter for the
council's awareness is that the cba between the union and the
city is set to expire in september.
the council must consider potential wage increases for the
officers, as they are the most crucial aspect to increase
staffing back to appropriate levels.
the way the mpd is forced to handle these critically low
staffing numbers is through mandatory overtime assignments.
since 2021, the department has regularly exceeded 1,000,000
hours of overtime every year. With 2024 seeing 1.8 million
hours. 2025 ended with more than 1.7
million hours. And while data for fy 26 is
limited, they show similarly unsustainable levels early in
the year, relying this heavily overtime rather than hiring and
retaining full time officers cost the taxpayer tens of
millions annually. Dc police union strongly
supports the mayor's proposed fy 27 mpd budget.
significant enhancements for personnel services, overtime
alignment, contractual services, fleet maintenance and facility
related investments represent a critical and overdue step
towards stabilizing our workforce, improving retention
and addressing deplorable conditions in our members face
every day. By fully funding these
increases, the council can send a clear message that the
district values its police officers and is committed to
restoring the strength and readiness of the metropolitan
police department. The union asked for the council
to give deep consideration when making decisions that affect the
ability to hire and retain our best employees, specifically,
legislation affecting employee rights as well as budgetary
decisions to support staffing, facility upgrades and fleet
modernization. These issues are at the heart of
mpd's ability to provide exceptional service to residents
and visitors. Thank you for the opportunity to
testify. I welcome any questions the
committee may have. Thank you.
joey ferguson, de flock, dc. Miss joey, I'm a ward 7 resident
and proud washingtonian. I represent de flock dc, a
growing collective of dc residents who are opposed to use
of automatic license plate readers and similar surveillance
technologies. We are here today to vehemently
oppose the expansion of this technology in our city.
the mayor's proposed budget slashes slashes the kinds of
basic services that keep washingtonians safe in favor of
paying private companies to spy on us on behalf.
alpers, our street cameras that log your license plate as you
drive by, whether you are suspected of a crime or not.
flock logs this data in a searchable, nationwide database
that any flock user can access, including federal agents.
df.loc dc sees this practice for what it is real time warrantless
tracking of every driver in dc. The proposal gives mpd an
additional 7 million for contractual services, which
includes the expansion of alpers and mpd.
forecast recently called for up to 5 million to expand flock
cameras in the downtown corridor.
it sounds like they're getting their wish.
while washingtonians not only lose critical services, but also
their privacy. For example, the the proposed
budget cuts 6.1 million from the school based behavioral health
program. For what.
or what about the 5.6 million cut from victim services, or the
2.5 million from dc's youth homelessness system?
I could go on, but they only give me three minutes.
why does the mayor and mpd insist on insist we divest from
programs that address crime at its root, so we can pay flock
safety for more? Alpers maybe it's because the
former chief information officer of mpd now works as strategic
relations at flock safety, but I digress.
I have been a software developer for more than ten years now.
there's a common phrase amongst tech companies that I've heard
before move fast and break things.
I have unfortunately seen that recklessness come at all our
expense and flock safety is no exception.
their product, their products violate privacy rights,
disregard the fourth amendment and create and create critical
security risks for washingtonians.
not only is flock software riddled with vulnerabilities,
but it also serves as a data pipeline leading straight to
federal agencies like ice and sea.
we have no idea how frequently these agencies run searches on
our data, because mpd stopped responding to our foia request
from last year. In conclusion, we are demanding
our tax dollars be used to help children, neighbors, and friends
rather than spying on them. Doing so will simultaneously
restore community services. Our privacy and our rights.
I'm happy to answer questions and I love this city and the
occupation. Thank you.
thank you. Gregory.
public witness. Hello, my name is gregory.
and if you could turn your microphone on.
hello, my name is gregory sarkis.
I'm a ward 7 resident, a member of de flock dc and a fair budget
coalition member. As a heads up for anyone
listening, this budget will kill people, and I'm going to talk
about it. I am upset.
I am angry that we are continuing to over police dc
residents when we know that it doesn't actually lead to anybody
safety. I'm disappointed in our mayor
and this council for year after year, ignoring evidence that
shows that taking care of our people through investment in
social service programs is the most effective way to reduce
crime and increase quality of life.
and I am deeply sad for all of those who will suffer and even
lose their lives at the hands of this budget.
I'd like to use a moment of my time to honor.
to honor all those who will be affected by this budget,
including our unhoused neighbors who will continue to perish
because they didn't have a safe place to sleep at night.
for the children who are suffering because they don't
have access to mental health services.
for all those who will die of treatable afflictions, because
this budget will take away their health care.
and for all the people who have been and will be killed at the
hands of the metropolitan police department in dc.
safe and beautiful task force. If I wasn't clear yet, I will
lay it out. This budget is an act of
violence being committed by this government against its people.
let me ask you what logical conclusions you would want me to
make. When we have massive cuts in our
social safety net just to fund the violence of the metropolitan
police department, what should I think about this government's
priorities then? What does it say about how the
mayor and this council feels about our most vulnerable
neighbors? As I mentioned, I'm a member of
of de flock. Dc flock is the perfect example
of the kind of reckless police spending that, in the end, makes
us all unsafe. This kind of dragnet
surveillance is nothing but dangerous.
if dc continues to fund companies like flock, it is only
a matter of time before there is direct violence.
as a result of this technology. In dc, there have already been
cases of hacking, stalking and other abuses of these cameras
across the country. Why are we allowing dc to suffer
at the hands of this technology as well?
surely we can find a better use for the $5 million that is
forecasted to be spent on more flock cameras, sources for
everything that I'm saying are going to be included in my
written testimony, including recommendations from fair
budget, on how we can adequately, more adequately
appropriate these funds, like using $100 million from mbt over
mpd overtime funds to fund erap pinto.
I highly recommend you read the full thing, especially if you
still do not understand that funding schools and housing not
increase policing is how we keep our children safe.
I am begging you and your fellow council members to do your job
and write a budget that prioritizes all the residents of
dc. Thank you.
thank you. Ashley anderson, policy counsel,
dc justice lab. Good morning, chairwoman pinto
and members of the committee. My name is ashley anderson and
I'm a policy counsel at dc justice lab.
and I'm also a resident of ward 6.
today I'm going to talk about the mayor's proposed budget for
mpd, which includes substantial increases in funding for
overtime in addition to funding expanding surveillance
technology. Both are disconnected from an
evidence informed public safety approach.
the last nine months have shown that expanding law enforcement
in a way that contradicts local evidence and crime trends and
actual public safety needs, leads to higher costs.
without a public safety benefit and, more importantly, real life
harm to residents. The mayor's proposed budget
increases the unchecked use of surveillance technology.
the proposed budget includes an increase of about $7 million
across multiple bureaus to support various contractual
obligations, including but not limited to cctv, camera
maintenance and license plate readers.
the district has continued to fund an increase in pd
surveillance technology without evaluating the encroachment into
residents and visitors privacy. Meaningful interrogation of the
utility, and mixed uses of this technology, and without
meaningful communication or engagement with concerns raised
by community members. And this is particularly
concerning given that at this year's performance oversight
hearing, multiple people expressed worries about the
district's use of surveillance technology by law enforcement
and other jurisdictions have already sounded the alarm about
its harms. And it's even more concerning
given that surveillance technologies are used more
often, where a majority of the residents are black.
in addition, npd's pattern of overspending, especially on
overtime, is a waste of resources.
the mayor's proposal allocates $81 million for overtime, a
substantial increase from 39 million for fiscal year 2026.
and their disclaimer is, quote, while the agency works to use
overtime judiciously, it is a critical and largely inevitable
function of police work. But it's contradictory to say
that the agency is using this overtime judiciously, when for
years there have been a consistent increase in the use
of overtime, district leaders need to ask when our city
diverts money to cover police overtime, what communities lose
access to those funds, and are we essentially subsidizing
overpolicing at the expense of housing, violence prevention or
reentry services? And at what point does district
leadership say that this isn't working, and instead use those
funds to invest in community led public safety solutions in
partnership with nearly 30 organizations, dc justice lab
produced a public safety agenda that shared what community
members and expert demands. This includes expanding and
improving dc. S non-law enforcement responses
to people in behavioral health crises, authorizing and funding
24 over seven harm reduction centers, and increasing funding
for the office of victim services and justice grants to
close. The district does not need to
invest more resources into policing and surveillance of our
residents, but support social services and community led
public safety solutions. Thank you for the opportunity to
speak with you all. Thank you very much.
thank you all for your testimony.
appreciate it. Rebecca strauss.
talib, kareem. Talib.
kareem, are you here? Bill mefford.
secondly, gray. Frankie seabron.
all right. Welcome everyone.
we are going to begin with rebecca strauss director of
economic initiatives, federal city council.
thank you for having me. And I wanted to thank you,
council member pinto, for everything that you've done to
make the city safer and your work on.
legislation in the past, and also to fight for.
a juvenile curfew zones. Really appreciate it.
something that my organization supports, I would say about the
budget. We generally support what mayor
bowser's tried to do. It's a really difficult budget
year. You know that and difficult
decisions must be made. What I would say about the mpd
budget is that it's not clear to us that there is going to be a
lot of investment in dealing with the number one challenge
facing the force, which is manpower.
and we had chief carroll at an event a few weeks ago, and he
was very clear about the challenges that they face and
recruitment and retention. And it's a very competitive
environment right now for law enforcement.
as you know, a lot of federal agencies hiring up, offering
extremely generous benefits. And in the suburbs as well.
and there's nothing really in the budget that is making the
value proposition better for joining the mpd versus all the
other law enforcement agencies. And something that chief carroll
brought up a lot was the state of facilities for police.
and I know that the police union has called facilities
deplorable. Now, the mayor's budget does
have money for public safety facilities, and that's
important. But to my knowledge, there's no
new money for actual police facilities.
and that's just going to be a growing problem.
so I encourage you to think about is there any more money
that could go towards those priorities?
because otherwise. It's going to get worse.
thank you. Thank you.
bill mefford, executive director of the festival center.
good morning. Thanks for allowing me to
testify. Preparing for today.
I reflected on where we are at this moment in time.
in the 36 years I've spent in full time christian ministry, I
have never had a more challenging year than this.
one central reason for this is simple it's the constant threat
of terror for the continued collaboration between mpd and
ice, and the continued refusal of our elected leaders to hold
each other accountable. So.
but yet we continue not just to fund them, but to spend even
more money just seems like madness.
at the festival center, our primary concern is safety, and
we know that safety comes from investment over enforcement.
so what does safety look like when we consider the budget
before us? I think it would include fully
funding the domestic violence and victim services, fully
funding paid family leave, fully funding all oag programs to
educate workers and domestic workers of their rights,
replacing carceral systems with crisis response systems that
emphasize care over punishment, fully funding the access to
justice program, fully funding the emergency rental assistance
program, increased funding for temporary assistance to needy
families, unify and fund violence interruption services
and encampment clearings while funding storage options.
and the list goes on and on. So how do we accomplish this?
well, I'm so glad you asked that question.
in short, reining in the spending of mpd who are getting
a 15% increase from last year's budget despite crime being at
record lows, and the department and the department having
vacancies that it cannot fill, and losing 67 sworn officers
last year, the department is increasing staff pay and
benefits by $44 million and is doubling its overtime budget
from 40,000,000 in 2025 to over 80 million this year.
that's the whole ballgame. The department has secured over
$100 million to invest in surveillance systems.
as my colleague mentioned and described before.
and yet we are still in one of the most surveilled and heavily
policed cities in the world. Further areas of cutting include
denying any overtime pay associated with collaborating
with each I, h, s I and other federal agencies harming d.c.
residents that we would harm the very people who are causing
terror is beyond my understanding.
I urge you to also take a critical look at mpd signing
bonuses and the amount of money being given to mpd officers for
housing. When housing for the most
vulnerable is such an all time low.
that's. I'm going to stop there because
if I keep going, I'm going to go over and I'm going to get really
frustrated, but I really want to encourage us and encourage you
to provide to look at what real public safety is and not fund
the same old, tired, effective and ineffective and failed
programs. Thank you.
thank you. Mr. Gray, council member and
members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to
speak. My name is gray.
I am a native washingtonian, a proud mother of four amazing
young men, and a community organizer with dc gospel
justice. I'm testifying today because I'm
deeply concerned about the ways in which metropolitan police
department shows up in my community.
having more police on the street does not create a safer dc.
despite increased investments in policing communities, especially
communities of color, continue to experience harm, fear and
instability rather than safety. There is a lack of transparency
when incidents occur in our communities of color, families
are often left without answers or accountability.
when. When harm is done, the lack of
transparency erodes trust and deepens the divide between
residents and those who are meant to serve them.
I'm also concerned about mpd's collaboration with federal
authorities, which has led to unlawful targeting, harassment
and arrest of d.c. Residents of color.
this only adds to over and criminalization already
experienced in our neighborhoods.
recently, the approval of the youth curfew allows police to
threaten and arrest young children as young as 12 years
old. At the same time, there has been
a narrative that places that places blame solely on parents
for what has been labeled teen takeovers, which, while crucial
social programs that families rely on, continue to be cut.
the approach criminalizes our youth.
instead of investing in them, we should be asking deeper
questions why are young people not going home after school?
could it be due to unstable housing or housing conditions
under in under-resourced communities?
why are they outside at night? Are they avoiding circumstances
at home that are beyond their control?
why are they gathering in large numbers?
could it be because their need for safe spaces, programing and
support has continually, continuously been underfunded?
our youth are the future of our city.
they deserve to feel supported, valued and safe, not
surveillance and criminalized in our communities of color.
we know when police are called or show up, situations often
escalate rather than resolved. This is why we say we keep us
safe. The public safety, true public
safety comes from strong communities, not overpolicing.
at the same time, mpd continues to receive increased funding
year after year crucial programs that actually support safety and
stability are being cut. The access to justice program,
which helps residents face facing eviction and unsafe
housing conditions, is being gutted without.
if families are at greater risk of displacement and exploitation
by landlords, the office of attorney general, worker's
rights outreach program is being defunded.
the progra plays a crucial role in educating workers about their
rights and connecting them to legal support when they
experience wage theft or workplace abuse.
without it, many workers will not file complaints, leading to
deeper financial instability. Potential housing laws and
increased reliance on already strained social services.
there are programs that truly keep our community safe and
stable, yet there are being that they are being cut.
while mpd continues to operate with over a half $1 billion
budget, we have the resources to invest in real safety.
the question is, if we have the. We have the will to prioritize
people over policing. I urge the council to consider
these budget priorities, invest in youth programs, housing
stability, worker protections, and community based solutions
that address the root causes of harm.
reduce over surveillance on policing and ensure
accountability and transparency for mpd.
the committee specifically has the opportunity to fund programs
like access to justice and the workers rights program.
that's by taking very little funding from mpd's budget.
thank you for the opportunity to speak, and I look forward to
answering any questions. Thank you.
frankie. Brian.
free dc and harriet's wildest dreams.
my name is frankie. I'm a third generation
washingtonian, a mother of two children who attend the d.c.
today I'm here representing free dc and heritage dreams in a year
of quote unquote, tough choices and supposedly unavoidable,
unavoidable cuts, the mayor is requesting 89 million more of
our tax dollars for mpd. If I do my job poorly, I don't
get rewarded. It seems that whether police do
a good job or a bad job, the response is always give them
more money. Since the start of last year,
all of us in dc have had a front row seat to the slow creep of up
of authoritarianism in the capital.
as this committee was focused on establishing surveillance zones
for for dc's youth and paving, paving the way for trump with
secure d.c., we've seen mpd following trump's lead.
we've seen them helping the trump, the trump regime to choke
off home rule and inch their project forward.
we've seen our communities with this safe and safe and beautiful
task force essentially be terrorized.
and specifically, when we talk about the youth and these curfew
zones, I myself sent my own 16 year old to the dpr event.
they went inside, had a great time, but they were met with a
line of police officers on either side when they were
exiting. That is not safety, that is a
bloated police budget. And to sit behind a desk and
sign paperwork that essentially leads to murdering of people is
is you are complicit. And so if budgets are moral
documents, you have to put your values where you say they are.
if you say you want to represent dc and protect dc, do that with
your actions and not just your words.
we've seen mpd reinstate officers convicted of murder and
and conspiracy in a slew of other things.
it's not fear mongering. This is not hysteria.
this is not vague. We we we've lived this dc is
still occupied. Meanwhile, the budget seeks to
take away other things. 127 million from from from
future pay increases for government workers, 95 million
from from universal paid leave. 60 million from child pay
equity, 33 million from services and public safety programs.
4.5 million from youth engagement.
4 million from family and survivor support.
all of the things that we actually need to be safe to be
whole. Our social safety networks have
been cut, and yet more money continues to go to things that
we know do not work. And let's not forget that this
is happening, as 46% of dc's wealth is held by less than half
a percent of tax units. Truth is, dc can address this
budget deficit with progressive taxes.
322 million from a business business activity tax up to 174
million from raising capital gains tax, 121 million from a
wealth proceeds tax. And that's just a start.
there is so much wealth in this city that is not paying its fair
share. But rather than address that
gap, the mayor and y'all would rather cut services and give
more money to an agency that continues to violate residents
rights, undercut dc's autonomy and side against democracy at
every turn. Live up to your values, brooke.
thank you. Thank you all very much for your
testimony. James stroud.
tanya gulash bosa. Mr. Ringler.
feni gandhi. And then keisha foster, we're
going to add a fifth chair to this panel.
or you know what. We'll do it after just it'll
just be you on that panel. But it'll be okay.
rather. Okay.
good idea. All right.
james stroud, public witness. I'm james stroud, and I'm here
to testify against the mayor's ridiculous budget.
when the overall budget has shrunk by 4% and the federal
government is aggressively cutting jobs, slashing social
safety nets and creating record breaking government shutdowns,
it makes zero sense for us to be increasing mpd's budget by 15%.
while so many live in precarity, I think it's critical for for us
to invest in our social safety net, to stop people from falling
into homelessness, which is incredibly difficult to escape
from and puts a strain on our city's resources.
investing more in things like the emergency rental assistance
program is not just the humane thing to do, but also the
financially responsible thing to do.
between 2016 and 2024, mpd spent $41 million on surveillance
technology, 6.6 million of that went to sound thinking
incorporated, formerly shotspotter incorporated, who
provide technology they claim detects whether a gunshot was
fired in an area in order to dispatch law enforcement.
a study of over 4000 shotspotter dispatches in chicago showed 86%
of dispatches resulted in no crimes of any kind.
other studies have shown that shotspotter has no impact on
reducing crime. Not only is shotspotter a waste
of $500,000 a year, but the false alarms are a waste of
police resources. If we cancel shotspotter, we
wouldn't be the first to do it. Chicago, charlotte and san
antonio are just a few of the cities to have canceled
shotspotter, while atlanta, portland and seattle outright
rejected shotspotter as junk science.
and this is not just about shotspotter.
the council needs to be more critical of all of mpd's
invasive surveillance technology like cellebrite and automatic
license plate readers. Last year, mpd paid out $134
million overtime. In the last 12 months of
available data, mpd stopped over 77,000 people.
meanwhile, nypd made just 25,000 stops.
new york city has 12 times our population, but their police
made three times fewer stops. This practice is not only
wasteful, but there's years of data and aclu reports showing
that these stops are incredibly discriminatory to black people.
nypd went from making over 500,000 annual stops to just
11,000 in the span of two years. After their use of stop and
frisk was deemed unconstitutional.
in that time span, the murder rate and other types of crimes
only decreased, showing that this racist, wasteful practice
doesn't keep us safe. Scaling down these incredibly
excessive stops would reduce the workload of mpd officers and the
bloated overtime spending. One other ridiculous part of the
budget is adding an extra person to an already bloated mpd
communications team. The budget calls for increasing
the size of the comms team from 23 to 24.
for reference, nypd has ten times more officers in dc, and
their comms team is less than four times bigger.
chicago pd has four times more officers, and their comms team
is just two times larger than ours.
why are we hiring a pr person for the police in such a
constrained budget? How are pr people keeping us
safe at all? If anything, we should be
cutting from here. Invest in programs that support
people through these rough times instead of institutions that
lock people up and put them in vicious cycles of poverty and
homelessness. Thank you, thank you, tanya
gulash, public witness. Good morning, chair pinto.
my name is doctor tanya golesh. I was born and raised in ward 4.
I'm a professor of sociology and the executive director of the
university of california, washington center.
I'm here to urge you not to increase the budget of the
metropolitan police department. We do not need additional police
officers. We do not need to pay police
officers overtime to pay to patrol the streets.
I say this based on what I see every day in wards one and four,
where I spend time walking on kennedy street, 14th street and
georgia avenue. What I see as nuisance policing,
quality of life, policing, police officers and federal
agents harassing black and latino residents over expired
tags, temporary plates, tinted windows, open containers and
marijuana. Not long ago, I saw a young
black man get pulled over. He had just bought an infiniti
from the dealership. He had recently secured a job,
saved his money, and bought himself a car.
he was on his way to pick up his daughter, thinking about how
excited she would be to see the new car.
then mpd pulled him over alongside a caravan of six
federal agents, turning a traffic stop into an
intimidating, multi-agency scene.
it turned out the dealership had not properly registered the
temporary plates that may have been the dealership's fault, but
this young man paid the price. His car was taken.
he had to go to the police station.
he had to navigate the costs. Paperwork, lost time and stress
of getting his car back, and he had to figure out who was going
to pick up his daughter. That is not public safety.
that is punishment. I have seen multiple car
impoundments in my neighborhood. These are not responses to
violence. They are armed operations over
registration issues. They create fear, trauma and
financial strain. They can mean losing the ability
to get to work, take children to school, care for elders, and pay
rent. The people who have been
targeted that I've witnessed on the street are exclusively black
and latino. This is racial profiling.
it's also bad public safety policy.
the research does not support the claim that increasing police
budgets makes cities safer. A recent study of 61 large u.s.
cities found no significant association between police
spendings and community firearm violence.
the research also shows that aggressive order maintenance,
policing, the kind focused on low level disorder and minor
violations, does not reduce crime.
we have to be honest about what we are funding.
more money for mpd means more stops, more armed encounters,
more opportunities for fatal encounters, and more chances for
d.c. Residents to be pulled into the criminal legal system
because of poverty, race or immigration status.
this does not make us safe. Public safety is produced by
housing, good jobs, strong schools, mental health care,
violence interruption, youth programs and stable families.
I urge the council to not increase the budget to end mpd
participation and joint patrols to require mpd to release stop
data. I know they you just passed the
act, but they haven't released the data and also invest in
violence prevention, housing, youth unemployment, youth
employment, mental health care, and community based safety.
thank you very much. Thank you.
mr. Ringler. Hello.
good evening, mr. Pinto. Good morning.
this mpd budget reflects money that we desperately, desperately
need elsewhere. I'm just going to run through a
quick list, echoing many of my colleagues sound thinking
$500,000. Also formerly known as
shotspotter, we've already spent $6.6 million on this.
houston council last year decided to cancel the contract.
let's cancel it. Let's take that money back and
spend it elsewhere. As folks have said, it doesn't
make us safer and it wastes mpd time.
we're concerned about overtime. Great.
let's reduce what they're doing. Flock cameras.
we have a 1 to $5 million contract pending.
let's cut it. It's invasive.
it doesn't help us. Cellebrite and pathfinder.
more digital surveillance. It's also an israeli company.
these tools make everyone's data vulnerable.
given mpd's relationship with federal agents, you weren't able
to get any straight answers from their oversight hearing.
the best way to make sure that this data doesn't get in the
hands of the federal government is to not collect it whatsoever.
in addition, israel is committing genocide, and we
should not be having contracts with israeli companies.
the communications department, the mayor's budget wildly calls
for a 25th mpd communication staff member.
in the time that we're cutting budgets for food, housing and
healthcare, I'm going to say we certainly need food, housing and
health care before they get number 25.
in fact, let's cut eight positions.
go back to the 2024 rates where mpd had 16 staff members.
and finally, overtime, fewer mpd officers equal mpd doing less.
it does not mean fewer mpd officers, does not mean mpd gets
to run up 20, 30, 40 million in overtime.
we need to be serious. When there's fewer teachers.
those teachers don't get unlimited checks.
when there's fewer firefighters, those firefighters don't get
unlimited checks. Mpd needs to really hear from
council. They don't have an infinite tap
on money. In fact, they have to stop.
and what's obscene is that we are you guys are saying they
have infinite tap because they've they have 40 million.
now you're saying they get 80 next year.
it's wild that they get to spend overtime up and then turn around
and ask for more officers. What needs to happen to make
that balanced is they do less. For example, stop and frisk, as
my colleague just said, stop stopping people.
great. You've just saved hundreds and
hundreds of hours of mpd time. Pull mpd out of schools.
we had legislation about that. Great.
stop participating in federal task forces.
how much are we paying for mpd officers to collaborate with the
feds? You have the power.
council member pinto to say, no, you will not get a single dollar
to collaborate with the feds. And that's power that you have
in your hands. And now what do we do with all
that money? We just had a great list of all
the things we are going to cut. One, we're going to fund
emergency rental assistance program because guess what?
if people are housed, there's fewer crimes happening.
we're going to fund health care. So many of my friends lost
medicaid on january 1st because dc dropped their medicaid rates
from 200% above poverty level to about 180.
that's obscene. And there's a gap, council added
some programs, some funding, but there's a set of people in that
gap that no longer have health care people.
we need health care, mental illness.
we need non mpd crisis response, legal services.
it's obscene that we're giving mpd more money to violate
people's rights, and we're taking away the very lawyers
that help those people. When mpd violates those rights
programing for kids on curfews, you're saying that kids need
more resources, and yet we're cutting dps budget.
and finally foia requests. We're supposed to have access to
mpd disciplinary records. But that bill has never been
funded before. We get a comms person, I want
the legislation that we have saying that I should be able to
foia, mpd officers to be funded. Thank you.
thank you. Thank you all very much.
feni gandhi and jt foster. Hi.
all right. We will begin with feni gandhi,
public witness. Good morning all.
my name is feni gandhi. I'm a current second year law
student at the udc. David, a clark school of law.
thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding the mpd
proposed budget and its relationship to the juvenile
curfew policy. There are many moments when
policy sounds convincing convincing in theory, but falls
apart in practice. The district's juvenile curfew
is one of those moments in the committee markup.
you. Council member pinto emphasized
that no one has been arrested for violating curfew, but that
framing misses reality. Even if young people are not
formally charged with curfew violations, they're still being
stopped, questioned and arrested for related conduct.
these are unnecessary interactions with law
enforcement that would not occur otherwise.
the harm is happening regardless of how it's labeled.
the logic behind the curfew is deceptively simple.
fewer young people outside at night means fewer crimes
involving young people. As one critique explains, the
assumption. The assumption is that there
won't be crimes involving juveniles if there are no
juveniles. But this reasoning ignores the
root cause of youth crime, poverty, lack of opportunity and
a limited access to safe, supportive environments.
a curfew does not solve these problems, it merely pushes them
out of sight. More importantly, the curfew
represents a poor use of public resources.
mpd's proposed budget increase increases by approximately $89
million, with much of that increase being driven by
personnel costs and a dramatic rise in overtime spending.
enforcing curfew zones requires significant police presence at
night, and the district is relying on overtime to sustain
that presence. This is a reactive approach, not
a preventative one. Rather than continuing to invest
in strategy that has not produced meaningful results, the
district should reconsider how these funds are allocated,
redirecting even a portion of these resources towards
prevention would far greater benefits.
what young people in the city consistently point to is a lack
of safe, accessible, safe spaces to gather.
the problem is not simply that youth are outside, it's that
they have nowhere else to go. D.c. D.c. Should invest in third
spaces, community centered environments outside of homes
and schools where young people can build relationships, access,
access, support and spend time safely.
the department of parks and recs rec have already demonstrated
the value of this approach through structured youth
programing during school breaks. Expanding these efforts,
particularly during evening hours, would address the
underlying conditions that gave rise to the gatherings and
curfew gatherings. The curfew seeks to control.
if the district is serious about reducing harm and improving
public safety, it must move beyond policies that prioritize
enforcement over investment. The question is not to how to
how to keep young people off the streets, but how to create a
city where they have somewhere better to be.
thank you for your time and consideration.
thank you, keisha foster, public witness.
good morning, chairperson pinto and members of the committee.
my name is jt foster and I am in my second year of law school at
the university of the district of columbia.
david, a clark school of law. And I'm here today to ask this
committee a crucial question. Why are we protecting economic
convenience by criminalizing our youth?
because that is exactly what the current juvenile curfew is
doing. When we implement curfew zones
in navy yard, noma and u street corridor, the proposed increase
in patrol funding is directly relevant to the juvenile curfew
enforcement, because patrol services are often the primary
mechanism to enforce a curfew, policies, increased patrol
capacity means the district is responding to young people
through enforcement rather than engagement.
and this is why I urge the committee to reconsider the
proposed $21.5 million increase for patrol services and instead
direct those funds toward prevention by investing them in
the youth and family engagement division, more commonly known as
the yfd. If the council were to
reallocate the proposed increase to the yfd, the district would
be able to accomplish the outcomes we say we want, which
is to reduce of violence the promote of community safety.
this allocation to the yfd would strengthen relationships between
young people and public safety systems, rather than expanding
patrol capacity, the district should strengthen the
infrastructure that prevents harm before it even occurs.
a $21.5 million investment in yfd could expand youth
programing and increase violence prevention, support and create a
safe space and meaningful engagement opportunities for
youth across the district. A public safety should not be
solely defined by enforcement capacity, but should also
include sustained investments in systems that make communities
safer. So dc and this committee has a
choice. Continue funding responses
centered on overpolicing and criminalization of youth, or
make deeper investments in prevention and youth development
to ensure community safety. And I respectfully ask this
committee to choose the former by redirecting the proposed
$21.5 million increase in patrols to and redirect them to
the youth and family engagement division and demonstrate through
this budget that prevention is a core public safety strategy.
thank you. Thank you.
thank you both. Thank you to all of our public
witnesses who have joined us in person today.
I appreciate you all being here. We are going to turn to our
public witnesses who are joining us virtually.
as a reminder, please accept your invitation to join as a
panelist, jonah goodman. Dave statter, paula edwards,
commissioner paul edwards, ty hobson, powell ojeifo anyanwu,
caroline pryor, scott goldstein, devon montgomery, john payne,
l'oreal. Hawk.
jonah goodman, are you here? Great, yes.
go ahead. Yeah.
thank you. I have three requests.
this is for office of unified communications.
today in 2025, you see hearings. Chairperson pinto, you mentioned
that usc does not have resources to investigate every unc
dispatch mistake they made while the mayor and director talk
about how ouc now answers more calls in the first 15 seconds,
they don't mention that ouc continues to make significant
dispatch errors and worse, that they're hiding this claim,
saying they don't have the resources to investigate.
and worse, we know that individuals are seriously
injured, potentially dying as life saving help is sent to
non-existent addresses or wrong quadrants.
the problem is so pervasive. I've been emailing this
committee and director mcgaffin with numerous mistakes every
week. I've sent you all recordings of
ouc dispatch traffic showing the mistake, reports sent to ouc of
the mistake, and ouc responding, saying they've received the
report yet. Ouc investigates none of these
and this committee has done nothing about it.
every 13th since committee recording of error with eight
minutes last time, february 20th, I sent the confirmation
dispatch area of cardiac arrest that sent the wrong address.
february 27th I sent this committee recording of dispatch
error where they mishandled dispatch and lost 26 minutes.
every week. There's one of these going on
trevor's and pinto in your 2025 ouc oversight hearing.
you admitted that, quote, it's a matter of time and resources to
investigate these issues. And if they don't have the
caller's phone number, even when you have a recording of the
radio traffic, you see make a mistake.
the report with the time, the date, the location, and ouc has
confirmed that they have these reports.
this doesn't get investigated. So asking for budget to give ouc
ability to actually investigate all this.
we know how pervasive this this issue is.
it shouldn't take a citizen like me documenting these issues and
send them over to the committee to review this.
director gaffen in january 2026, oversee oversight hearings,
said, quote, everything we receive is reflected on that
dashboard, but we know that's absolutely not true, given that
director, council member pinto and director gaffen, you have
emails with this documentation of these errors of the radio
traffic, and nothing gets put in.
these written response to this committee on april 14th are
somewhat of a joke. When you ask about mistakes,
they keep saying, after you hear from a concerned resident, oh,
uc recommends the committee refer them back to the website
to ensure details and allegations provided for the
review. But the director actually has
all of these in her inbox and is doing nothing about it.
so our recommendation here get ouc resources or find resources
outside of usc to independently review continuation of mistakes
and what's happening so we can learn from them.
second, request funding for usc to comply with laws around foia
requests. We know council member pinto,
I've sent you multiple emails on this.
uc denies foia requests. The mayor's office legal counsel
comes back. Ouc refuses to talk with them.
olc sides with the people assuming foia requests.
ouc then denies it and says they won't report it.
I asked for a foia director mcgaffin for records of her
receiving a confirmation of an error and oucs response, saying
they had it. We have that documentation.
councilman pinto, I sent it to you.
you have it, I have it. And director mcgaffin said they
cannot find it and they're not going to comply with foi
requests. So looking for independent
resources so that we can comply with foia requests.
and lastly, and again, late on time, just this is adjacent to
it. But I know officer chief
technology council, if we can ask them for funds, one of
things I'm running with this committee a lot is council
members having a lot of technical issues.
every time I ask why is there a mistake not being investigated,
I get answers that, oh, the emails lost, they can't find it.
council members can't understand a response.
I know this is never on the council members, so let's get
octa to come in and help you understand.
and the committee members, what's happening to your emails
and why you can't respond to these issues of documented
mistakes. Thank you so much.
thank you. Dave statter, staten island one
communications. Good morning.
5:29 a.m. Last december, second engine 11.
the communications. Did you get anybody on the call
back? No.
answer. 530 engine 11 communications.
no answer. 22 seconds later, engine 11 to
communications. No answer.
532. Engine 11 communications.
no answer. 14 seconds later.
engine 11 to communications. No answer.
533. Medic 21 to communications.
no answer. 19 seconds later.
engine 11 communications. Still no answer.
seven times in four minutes. Dispatchers didn't answer the
radio during a cardiac arrest call.
despite that fact, on april 14th, in her third response to
you about this call, heather mcgaffin refused to admit that
her dispatchers didn't answer the radio.
now, on the positive side, a call taker did a great job
keeping the phone line open even after the caller home alone
stopped responding. But this crucial information
wasn't relayed to fire and ems until 19 minutes into the call.
so who does? Director mcgaffin blame?
not her. Dispatchers.
instead, she wrote, the call taker continued to update the
dispatch notes, which were apparently not seen by fems.
so how could the firefighters and medics not see it?
well, they were outside the apartment door doing their job,
poised to break in. What she didn't explain is why
her dispatchers didn't see such an important message, and then
relay it to those crews. After all, that's their job.
despite these outrageous and unfortunately, very common dc
911 mistakes, the director wrote to you, appropriate action was
taken by all involved. Oh, you see, personnel.
and if that's not absurd enough, director mcgaffin also wrote
fems asked oh, you see, for authorization to breach the
door. However, the agency does not
make such decisions. That just didn't happen.
there's no evidence of it. It's fantasy.
this mcgaffin had listened to the radio traffic.
she would have heard the officer of engine 11 say, and I quote,
I'm prepared to force entry. I'm ready to force entry.
we just want to make sure we're forcing entry into the correct
department. It's five months after an
extremely botched high priority medical call, and after three
requests, you still can't get straight answers.
mcgaffin failure to take responsibility and instead point
fingers tells you all you need to know why the bill to give the
dc fire and ems medical directory director authority
over ems protocols and quality assurance must pass.
as I wrap up, I beg you to ask director mcgaffin these
questions. What were dispatchers doing?
instead of answering the radio or reading and relaying the call
takers priority message, their cameras on the operations floor,
she can find that answer. Where did mcgaffin get the
absurd idea that firefighters asked for permission to breach
the door? And after district dogs director
mcgaffin said her staff better understands that fire and ems
aren't always in the unit reading their mdts.
so why is the director putting it on fire and ems to see these
messages, and is absolving dispatchers of responsibility?
please don't let her say she'll respond with responses in
writing later. Three chances in five months.
time's up. It's her job to know these
answers. If she doesn't, she should
resign. Thank you.
thank you, commissioner paula edwards.
hello, chair pinto, thank you for allowing me to testify
today. I'm the anc chair for commission
for a and the commissioner for a and c for a zero one.
I would like to testify in opposition to any cuts to the
oec budget based on my constituents feedback.
I do not have experience with the 911 system that other
witnesses have, but I hardly think it would be improved by a
budget cut. My experience has mostly been
with the 311 system. My constituents seem to be
satisfied with the 311 system overall, but are very critical
of the way agencies use the system.
specifically the way requests are closed without action.
so sorry. Or explanation.
the majority of requests in my s, m, d are for dpw and ddot.
I tracked repeated ddo requests for one alley repair in my smd
back to 2016. The requests were closed with no
explanation, no indication that the defect had been cured or
remediated for almost ten years. The alley continued to
deteriorate until it was finally repaired this spring.
director mcgaffin and the o. C community outreach team have
been very helpful to me in understanding the limitations
and stresses on the system. Similarly, dpw requests often
involve the same addresses that are closed without correction or
show repeated incidences of defect.
this methodology ensures that the system is overtaxed and
hastens its deterioration and failure.
I hope we can invest more in improving agency responses and
transparency in use. Of the 311 system and in helping
constituents to understand how it works so that we do not
destroy it. Thank you.
and I'm available for questions. Thank you commissioner.
ty hobson. Powell.
o heffernan, aclu dc. Can you hear me?
yes. All right.
hello, chair pinto and members of the committee.
my name is ahoy, and I present the following on behalf of aclu
dc. It is more critical than ever
that dc. S limited resources are invested
into public safety strategies that respond to the real needs
of dc residents that center impacted communities and move
away from carceral centric strategies, strategies that
decades of observation and research have shown.
excuse me. Strategies that decades of
observation and research have made clear do not work.
do not make the best use of resources, and certainly do not
make communities safer. My written testimony goes into
goes into detail about staffing and accountability at mpd, and
closing loopholes that allow mpd to exploit dc law to engage in
immigration enforcement. Today, I will focus on how the
district's response to concerns about youth behavior is setting
up both young people and the proposed strategies for failure.
a cdc strongly urges the council to reverse course and reject the
permanent youth curfew bill. Over the past couple of years,
multiple youth curfews have been implemented.
during this time, we have seen that these policies do not
improve public safety and do not deter young people from
congregating in large groups. This is not an effective use of
dc's budget, when it could be used to support and uplift the
district's youth with the curfew.
policies have done is provide an excuse for police to racially
profile, harass and provoke black youth who are the primary
targets of enforcement. Mpd officers have been observed
running after young people and stopping those trying to leave
from getting on the metro. Witnesses have recorded mpd
officers forcefully grabbing young people, taunting and
threatening them and yelling aggressively while pointing
pepper spray guns at them and adults trying to deescalate.
it must also be noted that although mpd is not formally
arresting young people in these zones, the experience of being
placed and transported in a squad car, be it to their home
or facility, can have the same traumatic impact.
there are many factors that influence young people's
behavior. These include the adolescent
brain being hardwired for risk taking, economic instability,
feeling unsafe and wanting to belong.
not only has research shown that addressing these factors is the
best way to change youth behavior, young people have made
clear that these are the areas in which they need support.
young people have come before the council advocating for
better access to mental health services spaces to engage in
activities and and viable employment opportunities.
the response from district leaders has been to invest
disproportionately in criminalization, while young
people get cuts to funding. Excuse me.
while young people get cuts in funding to school based
behavioral health and recreation police who are already ill
equipped to handle many of the public safety duties, they are
tasked with, including interacting with youth, get more
resources and lower hiring standards.
to be clear, ac dc is not suggesting that young people who
cause harm should not be held accountable.
what we are saying is that the current approaches, which
overemphasize punitive measures and cast too broad of a net,
have not. Excuse me, have been proven
ineffective and more harmful to young people and their
communities. While curfew policies may be an
easy strategy for attempting to control the movement of young
people and might even make certain people feel more
comfortable, they do not get at the root of the challenges young
people in the communities are facing.
they tell young people, particularly black youth, that
they do not belong in their own city and that their safety and
well-being comes second to other people's comfort.
in order to make the best use of dc's tax dollars, aclu, dc
implores the council to truly listen to young people at
tomorrow's roundtable and to make policy decisions informed
by their experiences and what evidence shows us to be
effective. Thank you, and I'm ready to
answer any questions you may have.
okay. Thank you very much.
I do want to remind all of our public witnesses that we have
three minutes to present your testimony.
I always feel badly cutting people off, but I'm going to
have to. So if you can try to keep
yourself three minutes, that would be helpful.
caroline pryor, director of policy and power building and
power. Hello.
good morning, chairwoman pinto and staff.
my name is caroline pryor. I'm the director of policy and
power building at empower. I will do my best to keep to
three minutes this year. I've testified before your
committee on multiple occasions to advocate against two
intertwined issues the youth curfew and mpd collaboration
with federal agencies. We have a disturbing
contradiction consistently displayed in both this committee
and the committee of the whole. Mpd says that they uphold
certain guardrails, such as that they are not over complying with
federal law enforcement, that they are not collaborating with
ice, that they are not assaulting our young people with
pepper spray or use of force, claiming that they are not
arresting any children due to curfew violations.
while community members affirm through eyewitness testimony
that this is patently false. On occasion, when video evidence
goes viral, council members pay lip service.
but on the whole, and although we are grateful for your recent
attempts to force transparency in federal law enforcement
interactions, we are not seeing adequate attention to community
voices. In many cases, what we're seeing
is council protecting systems that perpetuate law enforcement
harm. Despite direct evidence from
young people and their families that it places them at greater
risk. I won't extensively rehash my
comments from the performance oversight hearing, which pointed
out the vastly disparate impact of mpd's current policies on
black youth. 94% of reported stops and
searches, and the removal of 127 young people from curfew zones
to throw into is since calendar year 2025, we can look at
testimony from school community members throughout the council
session documenting terrifying cases of immigration enforcement
near schools, and I urge you to tune in tomorrow to council
member parker keith roundtable to hear students echo in his
committee what they have said here that youth curfew creates
rather than prevents danger, and that we must invest in systems
that empower them and their families instead.
not. In addition, today, I also want
to urge your committee to probe into the juvenile investigative
response unit, which I suspect is the mpd unit.
quote, investigating teen takeovers of deep concern is
their collaboration with leas and individual schools mentioned
several times in pre-hearing comments.
in what capacity is this unit working with schools?
what student records are they accessing?
what meaningful oversight is council enforcing over this unit
to prevent overreach? Each disclosure about this unit
seems different from the last. Their vague promotional
literature seems at odds with deputy mayor appiah's
description of their work. Are they creating, quote,
success plans for young people? As the deputy mayor testified,
in what ways are schools expected to comply with this
work or the units directives? Many of our schools exist in
neighborhoods where students are violently overpoliced and
racially profiled, and where community members understand
what's at stake. Many of those that did trust law
enforcement after the past year have reevaluated that mindset.
students and teachers of history have already made connections in
this committee between policies like the juvenile curfew and
slave codes, between immigration raids and fascist nationalism.
in your committee, you control enormous quantities of funding.
meanwhile, champs has been eliminated.
school based behavioral health has been slashed, dpr has lost
millions, community schools has been zeroed out.
we've lost the child tax credit and millions of dollars from
tanf. But will council greenlight mpd
budget? While while social services
languish, we cannot pump more and more funding into mpd
without accountability for the harm it funds, not just for us
adults, but for future generations too.
thank you. Thank you.
scott goldstein, executive director, empower ed, good
morning. I do the work I do because I
feel a deep injustice and unfairness between the way I was
able to experience childhood compared to the way young people
have been treated in my adopted city, where I've now lived most
of my life. Washington, d.c. Is full of
amazing young people. I had the incredible privilege
to teach so many of them for a decade and maintain
relationships with them since. In the past year especially, it
has made me incredibly upset to hear the way young people are
talked about. Faced with efforts to control
them rather than empower them to hold them accountable without
ever having provided them what they need to thrive.
I'm a history teacher by training, so I hope you'll
indulge me a little bit. The word curfew originates from
the french words curfew, which literally means cover fire.
it comes from a time before artificial light when people
still used campfires to stay up and talk before bedtime.
at the time when it was time to cover the the fire, all would
retreat home for their first sleep.
they would wake after four hours or so for their period of 1 to 3
hours of being awake before their second sleep.
but the relevant part here is what they did before the sleep,
which is to be together. Research finds that at this
time, 80% of conversation during the day was about work, but 81%
of conversation by the fire was about fun and brought deeper
connection. There's probably no time in life
where we long for connection more than adolescents, and we've
jammed the lives of young people with long hours of school,
followed by activities followed by homework.
and for many young people in d.c., the need to care for
younger siblings. They see entire neighborhoods
built up of restaurants that they could never afford.
yoga studios, dozens of adult gyms, kayak rentals, wineries
and breweries, the neighborhoods many of them live and have none
of this, but they also don't have the things that they want
most a mall just to roam around and hang with friends, laser tag
teen dance clubs that are safe, fast casual spots like chipotle
and on and on. They want to be in connection
with each other and have fun. They want to do it safely.
our kids are not looking to cause harm, so when they jump on
a bike, share and ride through navy yard only to have police
grab them and rip them off their bike for the crime of being
black while riding a bike through town and then openly
taunt them. What message does this send to
them? We owe the residents of dc real
safety and justice. We do not have real safety when
our plan for creating safety is banning people from a space, we
do not have safety. If instead of creating the
conditions for peace, working with parents, creating the
needed programing and working with community institutions,
with real trust, with young people, we simply make it
illegal to be in a group at a reasonable hour like 8 p.m. This
is a budget hearing. So this is what should happen
with the mpd budget. We should move funding from mpd
signing bonuses which have been ineffective budget policy, and
prioritize pay for proactive justice staff from safe passage
workers to educators and paraprofessionals, and reinvest
much of that in cbos that can actually have relationships with
young people and give them a sense of identity and
togetherness. They need to be in safe and
joyful in our city, working with the education cluster to
prioritize deep investment in conflict resolution.
two years ago, we brought a budget proposal for 250,000 and
incredibly effective conflict resolution curriculum and
teacher training to the council. There wasn't money for that, but
there's plenty of money for police signing bonuses and
overtime. We should transfer safe passage
out of dmps so it's not associated with mpd.
we should work to with the executive to increase the safe
passage budget so safe passage workers can integrate into the
school day full time. We should fund the mentorship
bill authored by council member robert white, that passed and
never received funding and work with dpr to dramatically expand
programing, both after school, late night and weekends.
our vision for public safety and justice can't be the absence of
children in our streets. It must be the presence of real
peace, opportunity and joy. Children deserve their campfire.
you can budget to make it so. Thank you.
thank you, devon montgomery, fellow and dc educator at
empowered. Good morning, chairperson pinto.
my name is devon montgomery and I'm the dean of students at
harmony d.c. Public charter school.
and empowered fellow and a member of the coalition.
the mission of mpd is to safeguard the district and
protect its residents and visitors with the highest regard
for the entity of human life. I challenge the council in this
committee to help make this a reality by redirecting proposed
funding from an already bloated mpd budget to protecting social
safety nets that truly ensure justice for all.
I'm here today to ask this committee to fund proactive
safety measures that invest in our communities, rather than in
the police department. Safe passage, dpi, youth
programing, youth mentorship and school based behavioral health
services are far more effective ways to approach public safety
than implementing a juvenile curfew.
social safety net serve to reduce poverty, protect people
from economic instability, improve health, improve
employment outcomes, and increase overall well-being of
all d.c. Residents. Ensuring a basic standard of
living for those who cannot support themselves.
the proposed budget increases mpd funding from 599 million in
fy 26 to 688 million in fy 27. This increase of almost 90
million includes about 86 million in local funds and
nearly 4 million in federal funds.
I would ask that mpd reach out for federal funding to secure
the desired 86 million increase for overtime.
I believe that administration would be more than happy to foot
the bill to secure the nation's capital, as it celebrates its
250th anniversary. We can all agree that every
community is safer when residents are housing, secure,
food, secure, economically stable, both physically and
mentally healthy, well educated and have safe spaces to
congregate. That 86 million in local funds
dedicated to overtime could then be used to strengthen dc social
safety net in a variety of ways. 2 million in fy 27 for the youth
mentorship through community engagement act passed without
funding. 16.7 million for db, 4 million
to ozone in dps for teacher retention fund.
3 million to dm. Increasing funding for ost
programing. 4.4 mil to are seen in dc for
community schools. 6.1 million to db for
school-based behavioral health through champs.
4 million invested in restructuring safe passage under
either c or d, 400,000 to ozone for educator wellness grants.
7 million to dhs for irap. 2.4 million to dhs for dcha.
permanent support housing vouchers 1.25 million to doe to
build a ward 8 community food hub.
two 20.5 million to dhs for temporary.
for tanf for tanf program. 5.48 million to dpr for site
based programing and 5.6 million to dpr for recreational services
and programing. All of these social safety net
programs add up to 82.58 million, and there are a variety
of other services that could also keep dc residents safe.
resources and programing keep residents safe, not law
enforcement. Thank you for your time and
consideration of my testimony. Please review my written
testimony for further elaborations.
thank you. John payne, public witness.
good morning. My name is john payne.
I'm a born and raised washingtonian and I currently
live in ward four. I'm here today because I'm
appalled. I'm appalled that we are
drastically cutting so many life giving services to our city.
at the same time that we're giving mpd a 15% raise, instead
of shoveling more tax dollars onto the burning refuse heap
that is mpd, we should use that money to fund programs that
truly keep us safe. I'm going to focus on two of
those programs today. Non-police response to mental
health and substance abuse crisis and erap dc has had a
non-police emergency response program for years, but it's
never been truly funded. I cannot count the times that I
have called for non-police response, or just for an
ambulance and gotten a cop instead.
several years ago, there was a neighbor in crisis in the alley
behind my house. She was sitting down and
thrashing around on the pavement, her arms swinging in
the air wildly. Neither my wife or I felt that
we could reach her to try and see if she was okay, and talk
with her safely. I called to get an ambulance,
but before ems could arrive, multiple mpd cars showed up
instead. I don't know what the officer
said to her, but she ran away before the ambulance could get
there. There are sadly many more
examples of this because we have not funded non-police response
team to fully meet our city's needs.
there are some obvious things that we can cut from mpd's
bloated budget. Mpd invested millions in
surveillance technology that does not work, and gives our
information over to ice from 2016 to 2024, mpd has paid over
6.6 million to shotspotter to try and dispatch police to the
sound of gunfire. This is despite the fact that
their contract with the city of chicago and other major cities
has been canceled after learning that 86% of their dispatchers
were not related to any crime at all.
we've spent another 6 million on flock and celebrate, despite the
fact that the data from these companies goes to databases
that's accessed by ice and other agencies, these tools do not
make us safe. They make our data vulnerable
and given mpd's relationship to federal agencies, the only way
we guarantee that our data does not end up in the hands of ice
or the big, beautiful task force, is to not gather it in
the first place. Non-police emergency response
and emergency rental assistance program are the perfect places
for this money. The city is already investing in
narcan training and distribution sites, as well as public health
vending machines. These types of non-police
programs have helped significantly lower dcs overdose
numbers. We need to keep investing in
non-police responses to mental health and substance abuse, so
that anyone in crisis can get the assistance they need without
interacting with law enforcement, without being
harmed by a police officer, or being put into the carceral
system. Similarly, investments in the
program will keep many of our neighbors from becoming
unhoused, staying in their homes and apartments is what will keep
people safe, not more police. And this is especially true
given that our unhoused neighbors are now being harassed
and assaulted by mpd and the federal task force to close.
the past year has shown an agonizing detail.
the problems that come with just shoveling money at mpd and
expecting them to solve all of our problems, instead of
rewarding violent thugs who want nothing more than to keep their
jackboots on our neck. Let's use this moment as an
opportunity to spend our city's resources and our tax dollars on
the things that truly matter. Thank you.
thank you, l'oreal hawk. Bianca palmisano.
okay. All right.
thank you all very much for your testimony.
I'm going to call the next group.
as a reminder, please accept your invitation to join as a
panelist. Jackie, carol.
jenny wilson, abel. Amin.
kimberly clisby, christine corey and cheryl k.
we will begin with jackie, carol.
public witness. Okay.
jenny wilson, crisis response team director from dc safe.
good afternoon, chairperson pinto and members of the
committee. My name is jenny wilson and I'm
the crisis response team director for dc safe.
we value our long standing partnership with the
metropolitan police department and recognize the critical role
officers play in responding to domestic violence.
mpd officers are often the first point of contact for survivors
in a moment of crisis and through officer referrals.
more than 13,000 survivors have connected with dc safe crisis
response line in fiscal year 26. Their participation in
initiatives like the lethality assessment project has
strengthened coordination and improved safety outcomes.
we acknowledge the difficulty of their work and support fair
compensation for officers. However, this year's proposed
budget raises important questions about whether our
current approach is the most effective way to improve public
safety. The proposed increase nearly 92
million more than last year, including a 100% increase in
their overtime budget, continues a pattern of expanding
investment in policing and at a time of tight budgets and
limited city funds. We must ask, is this trajectory
producing better outcomes, particularly for victims of
domestic violence? Dc has been successful in
driving down community violence, and we applaud those efforts.
but success did not come with policing alone.
success came with investments across innovative programing and
agencies. One example is the
multidisciplinary work we do with city agencies through the
domestic violence systems review team.
we see every day that we cannot police our way out of domestic
violence. Officers are often responding to
situations where underlying needs housing, financial
stability, access to services are beyond what policing alone
can address. Many officers recognize this and
are frustrated by the limitations of their role.
these increases. While we also see cuts in victim
services, access to justice, dhs and other social safety nets are
troubling. We see we are seeing an
increasing severity in domestic violence cases, and we think mpd
has a critical role. But we must consider whether
broader disinvestment in the social safety net is adding fuel
to the fire. When communities become more
vulnerable, the risk of violence increases.
we must also acknowledge growing barriers to the trust between
survivors and law enforcement challenges around immigration
enforcement and visa certification are discouraging
some survivors from coming forward.
I spoke with someone just this weekend who feared reporting the
full extent of the violence he experienced to mpd because of
their partner's status. Trust is foundational to the
public safety, but it will take time to rebuild investments in
strengthening entry points outside of the police, such as
our crisis intervention center, developed with the support of
obs. Jg, provide relief in a critical
moment. We will continue encouraging the
council and agencies within the public safety cluster to think
about how to work smarter in a time of fiscal scarcity.
there are practical opportunities to strengthen mpd
response, including improvements in data collection,
transparency, coordination and communication.
these improvements have been discussed at length during past
performance hearing testimony, but these are not solely
resource issues. They're also about
prioritization. As a council evaluates this
budget, we urge a balanced approach.
increase funding to mpd does not necessarily address root causes
or system gaps. We must consider whether
continued increases are producing long, long standing
and sustainable improvements. Public safety requires a
coordinated, community wide approach, like the high risk
domestic violence initiative. While mpd is a critical partner,
they cannot do this work alone. Investment in social services
and prevention are essential to reducing domestic violence and
improving safety across the district.
thank you for your time and I look forward to answering any
questions. Thank you.
abul amin, policy fellow, fair budget coalition.
thank you. My name is bella meany.
I am a ward 4 resident and I also work at fair budget
coalition as the policy fellow. And in preparation for the fy 27
budget, fair budget coalition has worked over the past year,
as we do every year, to develop a set of recommendations that
ensure our communities have the resources and investments that
they so justly deserve. As it relates to mpd, our
primary recommendation is for $100 million to be reallocated
from the mpd budget to dhs to fund the emergency rental
assistance program. Of course, instead of heating
this recommendation from dc residents, mayor bowser has
proposed a $688 million budget for mpd that includes more than
89 million in additional funding compared to fy 26 fair budget
coalition calls on this committee to not only reverse
the mayor's increased funding for mpd, but to also cut an
additional $100 million. Dc residents have made clear
that they do not want or need more cops.
we need housing and care. Housing security is an integral
component of public safety. Moreover, programs addressing
housing insecurity and other investments in community
building simply have much higher returns on investment than
throwing money at the police. This is exactly why we make the
very reasonable recommendation of reallocating funds from mpd
to fund erap. I know from personal experience
that erap is an important mechanism for preventing
evictions, homelessness and ensuring housing stability among
community members with low income.
nonetheless, while mpd budget has expanded year after year,
the annual budget has been slashed each year since the
pandemic. Even while the eviction rate,
housing insecurity generally and rents have been on the rise, the
council should increase increase funding for erap and that money
should be reallocated from the very hefty mpd budget for
overtime, as well as vacant and unfilled positions.
I note also that the mayor has increased mpd overtime budget
alone by 42 million above the fy26 budget.
like trump, the mayor is disconnected from reality.
since this is an arbitrary and capricious increase in police
overtime spending, which the council should reverse with no
debate, investment in safety net programs like erap have a better
chance at reducing harm and violence in our communities by
providing dc residents with housing, real safety and care.
because true community safety comes from investing in the
people. Thank you very much.
thank you. Taleb kareem, executive director
of stem. For us.
mr. Muhammad, you're welcome to testify, but you cannot promote
a political campaign in the wilson building at this public
hearing. So if you're you want to
testify, you need to take that background off of the screen.
with all due respect, I, I am a candidate for mayor.
I am, you know, going to try to remove my my background.
but, you know, you are promoting your political campaign every
time you, you know, speak at this dais.
so I don't think that it's, you know, I need to cut you off
right there. I need you to take your
background. I need you to take your
background as someone I just told you.
I'm working to try to take it off, councilman.
but again, for you to try to silence what I say is, again,
I'm not silencing what you say, but I'm going to I'm going to
remove you. I'm going to remove you from
the. Okay.
so focus on that. I'll come unconstitutional.
I'll come back to you if you're able to, to remove that from the
screen. Christine corey, public witness.
hello. So good morning.
my name is christine corey and I was born and raised in dc.
I'm here today to draw attention to the egregious amount of money
that mpd allocates to surveillance technologies that
put all of our privacy at risk and are not effective at
reducing crime. For example, between 2016 and
2024, mpd spent $6.6 million to sound thinking inc., formerly
shotspotter inc. This technology is supposed to detect where
shots are fired and dispatch officers to these locations, but
has an extremely poor track record of accuracy.
between 2019 and 2021. In chicago.
86% of deployments by shotspotter turned up.
no report of any crime at all. In total, the use of shotspotter
there led to 40,000 dead end employment deployments in a 21
month period. In houston, only 5% of the 4400
alerts in less than two years resulted in any arrest, which
led the mayor to end the use of the technology, calling it a
gimmick. Unsurprisingly, given the lack
of accuracy, research has shown no association between the use
of this technology and reduced crime, nor any increased
likelihood that crimes will be solved.
not only is this technology expensive, but it also increases
the burden on the neighborhoods. It is present by causing
excessive deployments of police when there is no crime.
given that one of mpd's main expenditures is over time, it
seems unwise to invest millions of technology in a system that
routinely and systematically wastes officers time without
making community safer. Additionally, mpd spent $4
million on automated license plate readers technology between
2016 and 2024, and intends to spend between 1 and 5 million to
expand flock alpr cameras in the downtown corridor.
not only are these systems costly, they pose major privacy
risks for d.c. Residents. They collect data about all of
our movement without any guarantees or protections in
place to ensure that it is not misused.
these cameras are connected to a national network where law
enforcement, including federal agencies, can query the data,
and flock has a track record of collaborating with ice.
since 2023, mpd has also spent over $1.7 million to celebrate a
surveillance company with contracts with ice, namely on
its pathfinder ai software. Pathfinder is used to analyze
data extracted from phones to track locations, interpret slang
and coded language, and analyze images and videos, including
facial recognition data. Access to this data allows mpd
and their collaborators to identify and surveil anyone
whose cell phone they had scraped, whether they had a
legitimate reason to do so or not, as well as those in their
proximity. Putting d.c. Residents privacy
at risk. The safest communities are not
the most surveilled communities. They are the communities with
the most resources. We need to stop wanton spending
on flashy technologies that invade our privacy and
needlessly increase police presence.
we should instead redirect funds to our social safety net.
I do not have time to list all of the underfunded programs
where this money would be better spent, but I will close by
highlighting the emergency rental assistance program, which
provides an important mechanism for preventing evictions and
homelessness and providing housing stability for low income
community members. Stable housing is one of many
things that makes our community safer and more secure.
thank you for your time. Thank you.
okay, to leave kareem muhammad, are we gonna follow the rules?
madam chair, I again, I, I want to reject your position about me
following rules. I don't think you follow the
rules as reported by, you know, some of the recent comments you
made about your opponent. But I mean, you talking about me
following mr. Mohammed. We we run these first of all,
show me a rule concerning political expression.
okay. And I would like to see that I
don't I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm not going to let you testify if
you're going to continue on this way.
we treat every person with respect in this committee.
you are not allowed to promote a campaign.
we would welcome to hear your testimony on ouk or mpd, which
are the topics of today's hearing.
I'd like to give you your time to do that now, if that's what
you're here to talk about. I am here to talk about it.
but I reject your position. I, I reject your attempting to
again stifle my expression. And if you're going to allow me
to testify, I'm happy to do so. But I will not allow you to
basically characterize what I'm doing as being against the
rules. And if you.
and if there are rules that, again, suggest that a person can
have a particular background that like for you to show that
to me, I've never heard again. I've worked for the council,
I've served as counsel to the mayor.
and I know what you're saying is patently not true, but I'm happy
to, you know, again, be corrected if you if you have
such rules. Your time is is moving down.
do you have any testimony you'd like to share?
oh, hold on for excuse me, I would like to reclaim my full
amount of time because we were talking about the rules.
and I told you a minute ago we were starting your testimony.
please go ahead with your testimony.
okay. If I can I be given a full
amount of time because I, I have my my testimony that I'd like
to, to give. We were talking about the rules
concerning my background, and I think that it would be, again, a
disservice if the committee did not allow me the full amount of
time to discuss my recommendations for mpd, as
opposed to discussing. Please, please stop continuing
this conversation. Please go ahead with your
testimony. So will I be allowed to give my
full testimony? That's my question.
you have taken more than double your time at this point.
I will allow you to go for three minutes, but please begin.
no problem. Thank you very much.
are you able to see me? Let me just make sure.
I'm sorry. You've disabled my my video.
can you re-enable it? We disabled your video because
you would not take off your political background.
please go ahead. I'm not going to give you extra
time. Again.
please go ahead with your testimony.
all due respect. I just asked you to turn back on
my video so I could be seen. I took down, first of all, the
political background as I told you I would.
but again, as I just told you, I think that what you're saying
is, is not legal as a lawyer and as a former counsel to this to
this body of the dc council, I know this to be a fact, but
nevertheless, I am complying with your request.
can you please turn on the video so I can give my presentation,
as everybody else has been given an opportunity?
I'm still not able to do so. Video is on our screen.
we can see it. All right, but it says.
right. Thank you.
so as was stated, my name is taleb kareem muhammad.
I'm the executive director for stem.
for us, I am a former counsel to the dc council, former special
counsel to the past mayor, former chief of staff to the
largest dc government agency and a former chief counsel for a
member of the house judiciary committee, which oversees both
the department of justice as well as the district's
application for statehood, stem. For us, as an organization
that's dedicated to empowering our communities, particularly
our youth, through providing quality relationships with
mentors and increasing funding or advocating for increased
funding for such, particularly in the dc government.
we are here to discuss the mayor's fiscal year 2027 dc
budget, specifically, the 674. 674,000,674.5 million.
allocation for mpd. As for us, we deeply believe
that the districts the district should be a safe, affordable and
free place to live. We understand that our
residents, our seniors, our small businesses demand safety.
however, when we analyze the data in the $21.2 billion
budget, we see critical misalignment.
we're investing heavily in our reactive system that closing
cases, for example, after the trauma has already occurred
while simultaneously gutting the preventive systems that stop
violence before it starts. This is not a blueprint for long
term safety. It's a blueprint for managing
failure. The the data, specifically in
fiscal year 2027, the budget proposes massive funding for
recruitment and capital upgrades, but it slashes
violence into intervention and also victim support is basically
gutted. The budget proposes a $5.5
million cut to victim services, grants.
from a us perspective, you cannot police your way out of
violence, but you can invest in the types of preventative
measures such as strengthening parenting and addressing some of
the underlying causes of violence within the home.
to prevent that violence from being spread outside the house.
we would recommend reallocating funds to restore victim
services, restore access to tech prevention grants, and we
believe that stem for us would be a partner, particularly in
exciting our young people, particularly about ways that
they can prevent violence through using technology.
the surveillance technology that is out there, that is being,
again, run by companies like palantir that are totally
invasive and against our youth would be reversed by
partnerships with young people to actually show them how
technology can be a value added partner, both in keeping them
safe, their families safe, and their community safe, without
any further ado, I'd like to again make myself available for
any questions that this committee might have.
thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
that concludes our public testimony for today.
thank you to everybody for your time and your insights on these
very important budgets. We are going to turn now to our
government witnesses. We'll be beginning with the
office of unified communications, where we'll hear
from director heather mcgaffin and anyone on her team who will
be joining. Hi.
welcome to you all. I can ask that everybody turn
your microphone on and state your name and your position.
for the record, please. Heather mcgaffin, director,
office of unified communications.
gavin suarez, chief information officer, kipling ross, program
manager. Doug.
excuse me. Douglas kemp, agency fiscal
officer. Wonderful.
well, welcome. I'm going to swear everybody in
who'll be testifying. Do you swear or affirm under
penalty of law, that the testimony you're about to
provide before this committee and the council of the district
of columbia is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, I do, yes. Thank you, director markoff.
I'd now like to invite you to make any opening statement.
you have. Thank you, chairperson pinto.
good afternoon, chairperson pinto.
members of the committee, committee staff and council
members. My name is heather mcgaffin and
I'm the proud director of the office of unified
communications. Mayor bowser's proposed fy 27
budget grow dc was formulated with three key considerations in
mind how to drive growth in our economy to fund the services and
programs residents count on, how to keep families in d.c. And
attract new residents, and how to create a business environment
that draws new investment and creates new jobs.
we are navigating a pivotal moment that demands more
deliberate approach to growth. The federal dollars that once
expanded our programs and unprecedented ways have been
exhausted, and the federal workforce reductions have
introduced new pressures on our economy and commercial
corridors. That being said, it is important
to be clear dc is still growing. Revenues have slowed, but the
city maintains a strong financial foundation on which we
can build by making the kinds of strategic and targeted decisions
that will allow d.c. To continue to grow while delivering the
high quality services our residents depend on, dc
acknowledges the economic realities we face by
prioritizing the most critical investments needed to ensure
that our city continues to be a place where people want to call
home, visit and do business in. I'm immensely grateful to mayor
bowser for providing me with the resources needed to execute its
role at the highest level in providing efficient emergency
and non-emergency communications and reliable access to city
services and information. I want to take a moment, like I
always do, and recognize the employees of ouc who demonstrate
their dedication to serving the public by answering the calls.
to put this commitment in perspective, last year, our 911
call takers and dispatchers managed 1.4 million 911 calls
and dispatched first responders from the metropolitan police
department and d.c. Fire and ems.
approximately 9000 times, making the d.c. 901 center one of the
busiest in the country. Historically, it continues to
rank as one of the fourth busiest centers behind the large
cities of new york, chicago and la.
in addition to processing tens of thousands of non-emergency
police reports, professionals at ouc provide life saving care.
they provide first aid, cpr, and deliver babies, and by hosting
text to 911 sessions with thousands of callers.
the entire ouc workforce understands the tremendous
responsibility of this workload, and they take their role in
helping to maintain safe, clean and engaged communities across
the city seriously. Last year, our 311 customer
service reps handled over 850,000 calls and facilitated
the processing of nearly 900,000 city service requests in
coordination with dozens of our d.c. Government agency partners.
additionally, our 311 social media team processed tens of
thousands of requests posted on x.
I also want to take a moment to acknowledge the feedback we've
received about the 311 mobile app and the web portal.
we understand how frustrating it is when the user experience does
not meet expectations. Since these issues were flagged,
we've been collaborating with the developer on fixes, and I
want to assure you that updates are on the way.
in the meantime, if you're willing, we ask that you use and
share our feedback form, which you can find on the bottom left
corner of the 311 online portal, or at 311.dc.gov, so we can
understand exactly what you're seeing.
this will help us conduct additional testing more
thoroughly and make sure the updates truly solve the issues.
patients and insight are appreciated and crucial to
making improvements to the app and the web portal.
I'm also pleased to announce that we will invite a group of
residents from across all eight wards to serve as beta testers
of the enhanced platforms before launch.
lastly, as always, you can submit a service request by
calling 311, alerting us via ecs or visiting the online
portal@311.dc.gov. At uc, we are committed to
giving each resident and visitor the peace of mind that we are
here when they need us most. Whether this is for
non-emergency help or in the most dire of times, with
investments in recruitment and retention, technology and
training, we have achieved 97% of 901 calls being answered in
20s or less. This performance exceeds the
national 911 call processing standard, which mandates that
90% of all 911 calls arriving at the app shall be answered within
15 seconds. Also, that 95% of the 911 calls
should be answered within 20s. Notably, we also saw a 31%
increase in the number of agency held records requests and are
proud to share that we fulfilled 100% of them within legislative
time frames in fiscal year 26, major investments were made in
technology and capital projects. For uc.
it's important to note that the ucs budget doesn't just fund
three, one, one and 911 call processing and dispatch, but it
also funds the radios, mobile data terminals and other public
safety communications tools used across the city by mpd and fms
and other government agencies, including the upkeep of all ten
radio tower sites across the city.
this is an immense and necessary part of public safety that
ultimately ensures the responder safety.
I'd like to take a moment to mention the renovation of the
public safety communications center, or psc.
ouc secondary operations site. This project represents the
critical capital investment mayor bowser made in public
safety through the years. That helps ensure long term
operational continuity and resilience for the district's
emergency communications infrastructure.
this multi-phased project modernized and expanded the
facility to fully support 911311 and the radio and mobile data
computing operations addressing urgent needs in mechanical
systems, spatial planning and technology infrastructure.
the project truly exemplifies the district's commitment to
delivering resilient, modernized infrastructure for public safety
operations by providing enhanced operational operational
capacity, workforce flexibility and technological infrastructure
aligned with the evolving demands of first in class
emergency communications. The mayor's proposed fy 27
budget for ouc enables us to meet the demand of a growing and
thriving dc with the resources it needs to do just that.
the proposed operating budget for ouc for fiscal year 27 is
$60,186,154, a 6.9% decrease from fiscal year 26 approved
budget and supports 413 fte. Last year, the strategic
investments made by mayor bowser and our workforce not only
enabled ouc to reduce the speed of answer for 911 calls from 15
seconds to an average of four seconds.
it also enabled the attainment of apco's agency training
program accreditation. This accreditation confirms scs
training program aligns with apco's.
american national standards, or ansi, in its curriculum
materials and documentations, which meet rigorous, nationally
recognized benchmarks. It also ensures our 911
professionals receive effective initial and ongoing training and
certifications aligned with best practices, so we deliver
consistent, reliable and professional service, especially
as technology evolves in call volume increases.
additionally, investments in the workforce allowed for pay parity
for three, one, one and 911 employees whose salaries were
disparate within the division as well.
an increased pay for 911 call takers so that they are now paid
at a starting rate of $61,313, which is higher than their
counterparts across the national capital region.
funding the entry level call taking position in this manner
provides the means for us to build a solid foundation that
allows for career ladder growth for the individual employee,
while remaining competitive in the in the region.
to attract and retain the best talent.
if you're interested in a position, please go to
careers.dc.gov and look for the telecommunications equipment
operator position posting, which is live because we'd love to
have you join our team. The proposed fy 27 budget
includes $20.3 million in operating funds to support 41
fts of the it division and maintenance support and
equipment costs for these different facets of the public
safety system in the district. Additionally, in fiscal year 27,
the 9.44 million capital budget will fund uninterrupted power
supply replacements at the unified communications center.
upgrades to the three one service platform, computer aided
dispatch enhancements, deployment of 160 emergency
communications consulates, replacement of 500 portable
radios for d.c. Government agencies, upgrades to radio
tower sites across the city, and the replacement of aging fleet
vehicles. Additionally, the proposed 9.4
million in fiscal year 27 capital funding will be used to
address several critical needs across our emergency
communications and support infrastructure.
this funding will go towards replacing aging radio and
dispatch equipment, upgrading our cad system and our three one
system platforms, making needed improvements to the electrical
and communication system that keeps services running reliably.
it will also support the replacing fleet and system
upgrades. Together, these investments help
maintain reliable service and strengthen the systems we rely
on each and every day to support the ongoing operating costs of
public safety, including personnel and administration of
901 and the technology and infrastructure and
interoperability and enabling 911 call handling and dispatch
the public services hotel occupancy fee amendment act of
2026 is also proposed in grow dc.
annual costs have outpaced 901 fee revenue collections since
2016, causing the agency to rely on the fund balance and an
infusion of revenue from events dc to cover operating costs.
fy 2027 budget fully depletes the fund balance and the annual
shortfall in revenue versus expenditures is estimated to be
$7 million. The subtitle assesses an 80 cent
per night fee for occupied hotel rooms.
it recognizes visitors to our city, use our emergency and
non-emergency systems, and will fully close the $7 million gap
without imposing the full burden on the residents of the
district. As we continue to welcome record
numbers of visitors. Not only will this fee help us
to thrive as a world class city, but it will also ensure that we
are able to continue to provide world class services as an
agency. Ouc remains committed to being
innovative, resilient and steadfast in serving the
residents and visitors of this incredible city.
we are proud. Our center is one other
jurisdictions look to in reference when they're upgrading
technology, implementing new programs, and collaborating
about new ideas. I look forward to answering any
questions you may have at this time.
thank you. Great.
thank you very much. Director mcgaffin.
and as always, I want to thank you.
and everybody who works at ouc, who is here today and who is
hard at work in the agency because it never shuts down and
is operating 24 over seven. Appreciate all you do.
behalf of the district. I want to begin also, as always
today around staffing, because as we look at this budget,
supporting our workforce and making sure that all of our
agencies have the personnel that you need to carry out, your
mission is really paramount to our responsibility as a
government. And as I look at.
ouc's budget, I'm worried about what looks like a proposed
reduction in. Ftes and with staffing.
and so can you explain the kind of rationale there and what this
would mean for personnel jobs that you currently have
vacancies and your ability to fulfill your mission?
sure. So currently we have 18
vacancies for customer service representatives on three one,
one, 11 of those we're going to keep.
and we are hiring into that. They are we are working through
pay parity. A lot of our customer service
representatives came to us through doe s programs, so we
have been working with them over the last several weeks to, to do
their resumes and things like that.
they'll be competing for a full time job for the first time as
part of the pay parity. And then we will back pay them
through october 5th, which was the first full pay period of
this paycheck. We've they know about this.
we've been educating them on that.
and so we will be cutting seven positions.
we are doing that because folks are using the portal and the app
more. And so we are going to say,
folks, you mean residents, residents.
I'm sorry. Yes.
residents and visitors are using the portal more.
they're not calling as much. So historically, we've had calls
over 1 million to 3 one one. We're seeing high call volume
during snowstorms, after snowstorms, when trash needs to
be picked up or during slides. But on a day to day basis, most
people are are using the app they're using, the portal,
they're talking to us on x, and we can take the seven people.
we're also going to be we've also introduced an element of ai
with octo into three one, one that has had really positive
feedback. So we are going to pilot with
the residents that that I talked about with the beta testing
group. And overnight ai.
solution where you wouldn't talk to anybody between the hours of
11 p.m. And 6 a.m., most government agencies are closed.
if you do have an emergency situation, you're talking to a
police non-emergency dispatcher anyway, which is on the 911
side. And so we are comfortable with
those seven positions. No one would be losing their
job. They are vacant at this time,
and we would still be hiring 11 people on in addition to who we
have. Okay.
and for the 11 positions, what are you expecting those to be
filled? We are working with d s laheeb
other programs throughout the city.
we've always used 311 as a program for returning citizens
and things like that. A program to give people a
second chance at a career in district government.
so we'll be working with our counterparts across the the
government to fill those 11 positions.
so we don't have a timeline that we think june.
this june. June.
yes. Thank you.
and for the seven positions that are proposed to be cut, just to
make sure I understand this, these will all be from 311.
yes. Services will.
so there will be no call takers or dispatch positions.
correct. We are not proposing any cuts to
911 okay at all. Are there any technical support
positions being reduced? No.
the only other positions that are being reduced are in hr and.
the chief, the chief of 911 operations, and I will say about
the chief of 911 operations when I got here, there were shift
supervisors, assistant shift supervisors, operations
managers, a chief of 911 ops, a deputy director and director.
and what we have found over time and through some outside
analysis is we just had too many people in supervisory and
leadership roles and things were getting lost.
so what we have been able to do is take some of the funding that
funded that chief of 911 operations role and make more of
the assistant watch commander positions.
so now we're just taking this position off of our role.
so now we have on each shift four assistant watch commanders,
two in call, taking, one in police, one in fire, and a watch
commander on each shift. Two operations managers that
report directly to the deputy director.
it has really made things go more smoothly without a lot of
layers of supervision. Can you say a little bit more
about the ai? Advancements that you all are
focused on? Sure.
so we're using ai in a couple of different capacities, one on
three, one one, we're asking you what's going on.
you're telling us maybe it's parking overnight.
it's mostly parking. It's putting in the call for
service and it's sending it directly to dpw rapid response
team for a response out. If a person would like to talk
to somebody right now, it's still transferring them over for
a police dispatch. So the 311 customer service
representatives, on average overnight together, there's two
of them typically are taking about seven calls between them.
so they're they're not really doing a lot of work.
and they're really happy and willing to, to go to a daytime
shift. So that's how we're using ai.
again, if somebody calls and needs to speak to somebody,
they'll just push one and they'll go right over to the
police non-emergency line and the 911 call takers that are in
the non-emergency role can help them and get them assistance.
and then, of course, we're using ai for quality assurance on
three, one, one and 911. Okay, great.
and in the first example you used, how much cost savings are
we anticipating over the next fiscal year because of those
developments? I'm going to have to consult
here. It's yeah, go ahead.
so in terms of cost savings, so it's the seven csr that will be
reduced. They start at a salary of I
believe 47,000. So seven by 47, approximately
300,000. Okay.
are you looking to expand those functionalities to other uses.
and are you how are you considering to do that without
replacing jobs, but to support the jobs that are already there?
so on 311 I should also mention this.
when you call 311 now and you say, maybe I'm calling about a
tree, an overgrown tree, when you get to the customer service
representative and you've already said that what you're
calling about when they are answering your call, when
they're being connected to you, there's a screen that comes up
that says, this is heather. She's calling from this address,
and she's calling about a tree. And here are all the resources
you might need to answer her question more effectively.
so we are using ai in that capacity on the three on one
side, so that they're not trying to find it themselves based on
what the caller is telling the customer service representative,
it's giving them options of what what resources on dc.gov they
might be using, or what resources in different platforms
they might be using. Okay, great.
thank you. So there was a recent oig report
that I want to ask you about, particularly it commented around
leave usage that came out that identified absenteeism as a real
operational risk at ouc. The report indicated that 30% of
scheduled shifts fell below minimum staffing requirements,
and that in fy 2024, ou c recorded 2785 unscheduled leave
instances and 1763 leave without pay instances.
what is this attributable to, and do we have updated leave
usage data for fy 25 to 26? Yes.
so the oig report started collecting data in 2020 through
20. The first part of 2025.
one of the things that we did separate from that oig report
was a. A public safety exercise with,
with our other agencies in our cluster to look at pfl usage,
fmla usage, sick leave usage, bereavement usage, and we
realized that we had people that had been out for thousands of
hours on leave and were outside of their protected status.
and so we did a few things at the ou.
c to really drive down that those numbers, about 80%.
actually, the first thing we did is we took an hr specialist job,
and we designated that person as a fmla and ada coordinator.
that's their only role. They work with folks to
understand what pfl is, what fmla is.
they stay on top of when a person goes out, when a person
needs to come back and what return to work looks like.
we also contacted those people directly who had been out for a
long periods of time. Some of them honestly for a year
plus, and said, we have to have a plan here.
you can't just be on the rolls. How do we get you to come back?
several people we were able to bring back in a real way, and
some people we had to separate from the agency because there
wasn't a path forward for them. And so we were able to open
those positions up. And so I'm happy to report that
since doing that, those numbers of of shifts that are short are,
have drastically decreased. And when I looked back in
preparation for this conversation, what I found was
most of the time it's just by 1 or 2 people.
but that in april, out of 64 shifts, only eight were short
and only one was short by two people, and the other seven were
short by one. So we've really made headway
there. But it's really just holding
people accountable and having a plan and individualized plan
when people are not using protected leave in the way it
was meant to be used, and do you think this budget makes it takes
any steps to protect those types of vulnerabilities going
forward? I do, and and I think one of the
things that we what we have done as an agency, and I can
certainly speak for for ou c because that's that's what I
know. And that's what I'm where I'm
the director of is that if we start to see growing absences
individually, we're really having conversations.
we're really taking a holistic approach, bringing in
supervisors, we're bringing in training, we're bringing in
well, our wellness coordinator to say, why aren't you coming to
work? Is there something we can do to
help you? And we have had success there
too, because we've found that maybe I'm not coming to work
because it's a childcare issue. Maybe I'm not coming to work
because I'm responsible to take care of somebody else, and I
don't really know how to navigate this or what what my
rights are as an employee. So we have a great working
relationship with our union. We have a great wellness
coordinator. And what I know is that when we
started taking this holistic approach, we drove down numbers
incredibly and increased productivity, productivity
incredibly. Okay.
and are you still using attendance incentives?
yes we are. This month actually was the
first time we used it, and we did that because we have more
people. So maybe it was the first time
you used it. So we april was the first time
we used it. It was put into the budget for
october, but because of the cease order, we had to still get
permission for bonuses. And so we were able to do that.
but you were using it in fy 25, right?
yes, yes. So I'm sorry I should clarify
that in this budget cycle. Okay.
attendance was really great throughout the holidays.
in january, attendance was good. We started to see a shift in
february, march. It was back up.
and as we're getting into the warmer months, people were
starting to ask about the incentive.
and so we're approaching it a little bit differently.
this month it was $800 may it might be a little bit more
because we have more people. One of the recommendations that
we took is it shouldn't always just be $800.
maybe in months where it's really busy, we should up that a
little bit more. And so those are things that
we've taken into consideration because come june, july and
august, when we have a lot of events for the america 250 and
different things, it'll be really, really important that we
have people there all the time. So we are using it.
it does seem to be helping and it's not just about showing up,
it's about being on time and and how much was budgeted for fy 26
for those incentives? 1.6.
excuse me, 1,000,056 okay. Thank you.
okay. I want to recognize we've been
joined by my at large colleague, councilor christina henderson,
and I will turn to you now for a ten minute round.
thank you. Thank you, chair pinto.
and good afternoon, director, to you and your team.
I just have a few questions for you all.
I want to follow up on a question that council member
pinto had asked about 311. You know, 311 is it's not
they're not first responders. They're not necessarily part of
the public safety apparatus. And yet three, one, one is super
important. I just talking to someone today
who says like, they have to put in a request to three, one, one
literally every week about a particular trash can that has
not been picked up. So when I see your budget,
knowing that people are now using the service more, or maybe
not, I'm not sure I'm going to ask that question, but
eliminating ten fte, I'm curious why you all are confident that
you'll still be able to keep up with user demand, and also
timeliness of responses? Sure.
good afternoon. We've become really efficient on
311. When I started here we had
really long hold times. In fact, if you remember, we
implemented the go go music because people were complaining
about, yes, the terrible hold music that they were sitting on
forever. And now they barely hear that.
yeah, people are also using the app more.
they're using the portal more and they're using x more.
and when they're using x, they're not just tagging us.
we want you to, but they're also tagging dpw dot the responding
agencies. And so I think the workflow
we've really perfected the workflow and those we've cut
back on our overnight. People aren't calling at night
like they were okay. They're just going to the app.
I mean, honestly, I work there. I can't remember the last time I
called 311, but I used that app a lot.
yep. So it's just a change in how
people are interacting with us. That's allowing for us to, to
cut those positions and still feel confident about the
service. So what, what's the percentage
breakdown in terms of method of how somebody reaches out to
three one, one? I don't have that offhand.
we can certainly get that to you.
but what I'm curious is about when I started here, I think we
took 1.5311 out, paste 911 on call volume.
so it was about 1.5 million calls.
and last year we took 800,000. So people are really using the
app more than the phone calls. Yeah.
I mean, look, I think that the app and also social, although
the agencies don't always like when I do that, but because I
can include a picture so I could be as specific as humanly
possible about what I'm talking about.
I think that helps a lot, as opposed to when I just make a
phone call and you kind of feel like it's out sort of in the
ether, if you will. But I know that some agencies
have also made adjustments. So for instance, at d dot, when
we changed all of the street lighting over to led smart
lighting, now you shouldn't be receiving 311 requests around
street lights being out because there's an automatic going back
to dot around that needing to be to, to be fixed.
but okay, I understand the change on there in terms of
other things within the budget, there's a 671 000 decrease in
radio engineering. Now, the budget books don't
provide an explanation. So I'm curious, are we
decreasing on the operations side.
and that will be made up on the capital side.
or was there an equipment refresh that we don't need in fy
27? So that reduction reflects a
redistribution of cost to our partner agencies that support
the radio system maintenance contract.
oh, we are doling out to other people.
so which agencies are is it femmes mpd?
so there's a 21 agencies that are supported by the radio
system. 21 agencies.
okay. So is I mean, will it be
executed via mous? Yes.
okay. So citywide mou.
okay. And so what we're seeing
remaining is just the portion that you all would be
responsible for. That's correct.
okay. All right.
okay. I want to ask a question about
overtime. There's a whole hearing on
overtime with the city administrator a little bit ago.
okay. Your ou si budget.
it is proposing. Oh, no, I don't have that.
yep. Okay.
3.6 million for overtime for fy 27.
this would actually be less than 2025.
how much are you guys. How much have you spent to date
on overtime? This current year?
a year to date overtime is 2.1 million.
okay. Now.
this year you are budgeted for 2.7.
so let's see, it's april. We haven't reached the summer.
you're going to exceed your budget.
so how do we feel confident about the proposal for 3.6 for
next year with our hiring plan, we're as we're bringing on more
people, I will tell you the one thing that we did not plan for,
but we have planned for moving forward is we have two police
dispatchers that are at the joint operations center every
single day. Now, we had never had that
before. August of 25.
so we, you know, we staff that 24 over seven.
that's four people every day. At the beginning of that, it was
over time until we got more dispatchers in place.
so as our. As we have been able to bring
staff in, get call takers, dispatchers and more supervisors
in place, our day to day over time is decreasing.
so special events over time is really what we have budgeted
for, and I think it will start to level out because we always
will have over time. Like for july 4th.
yeah. No, I mean, those events, the
number of things that are going on in the city over the summer,
you're going to have overtime. But I'm just trying to ensure
that we're. The whole point is we just need
to be a bit more realistic. Sure.
right. Obviously, I want everybody to
hire more because if you hired more, I wouldn't be paying all
this overtime on all of these additional people in the absence
of being able to do that. But if you feel very confident
in your hiring plan, I mean, where are we at in vacancies
this current year? So right now I have 24to
vacancies. I have nine starting.
oh, I'm sorry. 911 call taker.
thank you, thank you. I'm sorry, but I have nine
starting on may 18th. I have a second.
nine starting on june 15th I have six dispatcher vacancies
because they were all pretty much promoted and zero
supervisor vacancies. So we have a hiring position out
for the six dispatchers. And we also have a position out
currently for 911 call takers. And we've worked with d.c. Hr
that we've we have more positions out than we know we'll
need because we're going to promote people.
and so it will just keep flowing.
okay. But I also feel like the nature
of your work or the nature of the work that you're both call
takers and dispatchers are doing, some people might feel
gung ho about it, and then they spend like a month and they're
like, this is not for me. And I would hate for you guys to
have to essentially, I mean, you're gonna have to start from
scratch, but to start the recruitment process all over
again, it might just be helpful to continuously for this type
for certain roles, just have continuous recruitment and
hiring because eventually someone is going to quit.
like in there. Okay, yes, we want everybody to
stay, but we just kind of know, historically speaking, that is
just not the case. Okay, so this is good.
I mean, in terms of making progress on, on, on the vacancy
front. And I heard the back and forth
that you had with council member pinto about the leave situation.
so I'm not going to ask about that.
I am going to ask, though, about the hotel sub hotel fee subtitle
has reappeared from the dead. Now, the spr would essentially
would in theory would be allocated to ouc.
but I recall learning last year during your budget oversight
hearing that the funds actually weren't going to your budget.
they would go to the general fund and then allocate.
so right then they would allocate for the the technology
piece to cover the $7 million that we would need to, to keep
the, the fun gap. Okay.
I'm going to have, but it would be specifically for tech.
that's right. Next generation 911 is very
expensive. Yeah.
okay. I don't have enough time to get
another question off. And I want to be respectful.
thank you. Council member pinto thank you.
director thank you. Councilmember.
thank you, councilmember henderson.
we've also been joined by my ward three colleague,
councilmember matthew frumin. I'll turn to you now for ten
minute round. Thank you very much, chairperson
pinto. So just want to understand some
of the numbers that you just talked about.
so, 24 vacancies, nine coming on in may, nine coming on in june,
so. 18 so then six vacancies in the
call taker, and then six vacancies in the dispatcher.
so you could be down to 12 vacancies, which is
congratulations. That's a real accomplishment.
it does raise the question that council member henderson was
raising of, okay, if we're there over time, we shouldn't have
very high levels. I hear about special events, but
we shouldn't have very high levels if we're achieving our
staffing goals, unless our staffing goals are not ambitious
enough. So are our staffing goals
ambitious enough? At this point in time?
I'm really confident in them, councilmember, and good
afternoon. I'm really confident in them
because not only are am I confident in them, but with the
incentive and how we're using it and how we've are really holding
people accountable for coming to work.
and, and the wellness programs that we've upped.
people are coming, they're showing up on a pretty regular
basis. And that was half the battle.
honestly. So you, you feel like the
wellness programs that you put in place have had an impact and
are not just having the number of staff, but having them come
every day is up significantly. Yes, absolutely.
okay. We we passed legislation to
allow former retired f f e, ems and police to be able to be
called to serve with you and not lose their retirement benefits.
what's the uptake from that looked like?
has that been successful? Yes, highly successful for dc
fire and ems employees. I don't have anybody from
metropolitan police department that has come to work for us,
but. Six dc fire and ems and two of
our newest supervisors are retired battalion chief and
captain. Okay.
and then I think it budget oversight at performance
oversight, we talked a little about ai and what role ai might
play. I wonder if you can talk a
little bit about how the potential use of ai is fitting
into this budget. Yes.
so the the reduction of seven staff members, specifically in
three one, one, we are going to be piloting ai overnight.
we don't take enough calls overnight in 311 to justify
humans. At this point.
we've talked to the overnight staff.
they are really excited to to move to day work.
and so the calls that come in are for parking that can be done
through automation, using the ai tools that we have in place.
so we're going to test that out. And then we also are going to
there's always going to be an option if you need to talk to a
person that you can certainly get to a police non-emergency
and talk to a call taker that that's on the nine one side.
and of course, there will always be people there to, to take
emergencies. 247 and so that's how this
really plays into the budget. It also is allowing us to do
things like 100% of quality assurance without having to ask
for additional fte. It allows for us to use
programing at half the cost of one fte and get the results that
literally are 50% more than than what a person could could do.
so when you say that you've looked at it, you've you've
analyzed the data and you're seeing that in fact that is
happening. Or is that an advertisement that
this is what you could do? No, this is what we're doing.
so I ran numbers this morning on the quality assurance just for
901 in in 20, in all of 2025, we were able to evaluate 35,911
calls. We did quality assurance on
35,901 calls, which is not meeting the national standard of
2%. Since we've implemented ai from
january 1st until today, when I ran these numbers about two
hours ago, the system has analyzed 90,761 call, 911 calls,
and it's given objective scores. It doesn't know the person that
took the call. It just knows.
did they ask the question? Did they answer it yes or no and
provided them with feedback on how they did with the call.
so three times as many calls already in four months than it
did for the entire year last year with with quality assurance
staff. So it's, it's proof.
okay, exciting. You saw $1.3 million reduction
in the supplemental, and it looks like it's related to ftes.
what's what is that about? Is that because they're
vacancies that you've yet to fill.
and so the dollars weren't necessary or what why why a 1.3
reduction here. I mean I'll talk about that.
so it's a combination of two things.
first, the eliminated positions for fy 27.
they're currently vacant. So that funding is part of the
supplemental as well as when we did the pay parity as we went to
execute the actual salaries that folks would or our staff would
increase to, it was as it compared to the budget amount,
there was a $260,000 savings there.
so that coupled with the eliminated positions for 27,
gives us the 1.3 million and leaves you in a place where you
feel like your staffing is going to is adequate.
and perhaps the support from ai helps you keep your staffing
down, but you're able to do things leaner and meaner.
that's correct. I'm very confident in that.
okay. I asked you about the uptake for
the retirees from dc fire and emergency services, and the
police and fire and emergency services.
it sounds like significant uptake and fairly senior people.
one of the things that we hear about and and chairperson pinto
has legislation on is the medical director position.
and I'm curious to get your view on what role the fire and ems
should play in the medical director position and the
management of medical decisions that are happening inside of the
agency. They are the front line folks
delivering emergency medical care.
how are you seeing that issue? Sure.
so obviously, we're two separate agencies.
I work very closely with with chief donnelly, but I very much
work closely with with all of the agencies that we support.
you know, doctor morgan is a great partner and he signs off
on all of the response plans for medical chief donnelly signs off
on all of the response plans for fire and rescue.
chief carroll signs off on all of them.
for police and law enforcement responses.
the ou c should have its own medical director because we need
someone to educate us to take the mental health crisis, the
physical health crisis, and be able to educate, to understand
how someone responding to an emergency of any kind looks
different in the field than it looks sitting behind a console.
and I always tell the story about how I've done both.
I was an emt, I was an emt, an emergency medical dispatcher.
I've delivered babies on the back of the ambulance, and I've
given someone instructions over the phone, and it was a
different experience on both sides.
and so just because you're an emt and you must love saying
that, but go ahead. Just because you're an emt and
you know how to do something in the field when you're walking a
parent through how or someone how to deliver a baby and
sometimes their own baby, just like one of our call takers did
just a few weeks ago. As you may have seen on the
news, it's very different. You don't have the same
resources. Most people don't have an ob
delivery kit in their hall closet.
you're using sheets, towels, shoestrings and things like
that. And so having a medical director
who really understands that and can be there to educate, come to
our roll calls to, to do the things that we need them to do
firsthand and work with doctor morgan as the medical director,
to work with doctor basran on the mental health crisis
responses. That's what I'm looking for.
I'm looking for a partner. Those folks will all still sign
off on the response plans that that we dispatch out.
I'm not looking to take that away from anybody, but I think
we need to have somebody in-house who can help to
educate, certify and make sure that we're staying up on all the
things that we need to be staying up on so we can remain
in accredited first class 901 center.
all right. Well, thank you for that and
nicely done. And that you used up all of my
time, but I was already done with my question.
so thank you very much. Thank you.
chairperson pinto. Great.
thank you, councilmember frumin. And I do just want to note on on
this topic that you had raised this, and I think it's a fair
concern around limitations of resources.
and I think if we move forward in this in this way, providing
an additional set of resources for an assistant medical
director or things to help out will be important.
I also just want to note, I have no problem with the word folks.
I just I just wanted to be clear, if we're referring to
residents calling in or your own staff, thank you, but thank you.
okay, so back to the oig report. One of the things they talked
about was the use of overtime. What is the current rate of
overtime spending that you're using in this fiscal year?
and what's the anticipated cost for overtime for fy 27?
I'm gonna let doug give you the numbers.
and then we'll talk about kind of how we're using it, if that's
what you're looking for. Great.
okay. Year to date, we are at 79% of
the line item budget for overtime and average pay period,
average overtime per pay period is about 52% above the budgeted
rate. But sorry, what are what are the
budgeted rates? The budgeted amount for overtime
this year is 200. I'm sorry 2 million 662.
and we're currently at about 2.1 million in terms of the
expenditure year to date. Okay.
so 2,000,062 like 2,000,002 000. No.
2,662,000 got it. Is the budget.
the year to date is 22.15 7 million.
and the year to date. Year to date.
expenditure. Know that that's you want the
projected year end, the projected year end I believe is
about 3.1, 3.1, 3.1. Yes.
3.1. And historically, how have we
been on track with overtime, actual spending versus projected
projected again, as far as the pay period, we're averaging
about 52% over the amount of the budgeted payroll per pay period
for overtime, a little bit higher this year than we have
historically. So.
and a lot of that is because of the special events or needing
extra people because of those special events.
if we have to. Like I said, we have the two,
two people that are at the dock every day.
and so we we've taken that into account now and we have more
police dispatchers that we've put through training, but also
anytime there's a major event where we set the where we do the
perimeter that we've kind of talked about, where we might do
a perimeter around the national mall and femmes has a special
response that's just going to go there.
we have to give them a dispatcher for that, because
that's an extra dispatcher. They're separate from the rest
of ems dispatch. We give them special mpd
dispatchers for that, separate from what's at the dock.
they might go to the dock, but that's a third and fourth
dispatcher. And so that's what's driving
that up. But I'm sorry, just before we
get to the why. So I understand these numbers.
the 2.6 million projected for fy 26.
right. But you said.
I'm sorry, 2.6 is the budget. 3.1 is the projected year end.
okay. And then 2.1 is the actual
spend. Okay.
but that delta between the 2.1 and the 2.6, how do we reconcile
that with the 52% overage for each pay period?
as far as the that is concerned? Because of the the number that
we're over in terms of the monthly, I'm sorry, the the pay
period number. That will that is is causing us
to exceed the overtime. And at this point, it's driving
the cost and we're. And please let me yeah, maybe
let me ask this a different way, a different question.
okay, so we're six months into the fiscal year.
yes. We have $2.6 million budgeted,
right, for overtime spending. But we've spent 2.1 million.
so we're under budget, right? We're under budget currently.
yes. Okay.
we're under budget by about half $1 million.
right. Okay.
for 50% of the year expended. But then at the same separately,
you're saying that within each pay period, we've been 50% over
the amount of allocated budget. So how are we both half $1
million or $500,000 under the projected for the first half of
the year and 52% over for each pay period?
okay. From that perspective, we the
50, 52% that were over. If you extract that, extrapolate
that for the year. Okay, that would give us the
projection of the 3.1 of overage as we are at the.
current position, we burned a lot of the overtime early and.
it's based on the amount and it's, it's, yeah, it's a little
difficult to, to explain from that standpoint, but the
overtime that we are experiencing, it's an average
based on the pay periods. When you take the full number
and extrapolate that over the number of pay periods.
because at this point in the game, we should only be at 1.3
because our total is 2.6. So for the year, we should be at
okay, there it is. There it is.
thank you. Yeah.
okay. So we are not under by 500,000.
we are over. We're over projected to be over
by. We're under the total for the
whole year, but we're only halfway through.
but we're only halfway through. Okay.
that was my miss. Thank you.
that makes much more sense. Okay, so we're over where we
are. So looking back at the last
several years, is that typical for this time of year?
it's a little more than where we usually are.
I think usually we're actuals are more than the actuals are a
little more than what we usually are.
and now then getting into the qualitative piece of this, what
do you attribute that to? Kip just mentioned.
it's very true. The snowstorm was a big one
because we staffed and then we, you know, we used that overtime
budget for people. We housed people there.
so people were working longer when other folks couldn't get in
and things like that, that over time, that week alone was
probably our biggest overtime budget pull in the three years
that I've, I've been here. Wow.
okay. So then looking at all the other
shifts outside of that two week period, are we.
and then in february, I there we had like two weeks where shifts
were, were really down because people got sick.
and so 19 of the 60 shifts were understaffed.
so we had to pull in people for that.
and so I think it's just those types of things coupled with
these special events that we just hadn't budgeted for when we
made the 26 budget. But we certainly have taken it
into account in the 27 budget and have the the staff for we
have not used overtime for training in this fiscal year.
okay. What happens if you run out of
overtime spend like you have a shift, there's an emergency.
you need people, but you don't have any money left in the
overtime budget. What happens then?
we work with the executive to to identify funds to make it
happen, honestly, because we can't.
I mean, it's just a detriment to the whole city and the public
safety ecosystem. If we just don't bring people in
to to work the shifts. Okay.
so then in terms of bringing people in to work, the shifts
who are currently planned and scheduled and paid to be there,
tell me a little bit more about our, your paid leave policy.
this individual that you mentioned, who had been out for
a year, how does that happen? So they were out.
they were out leave without pay was one of our biggest numbers.
and that information was in that oig report.
you know, I'll come back. They were bringing in doctor's
notes. And so what we really had to do.
I think previously, trying to work with people to get a return
to work, where now we're just really having to be stringent.
if, if you can't come back, you have to have another
alternative. And it can't be at the expense
of the agency's performance. And so that's kind of what was
happening is, is that all eventually come back or I'll
come back in a few months or I've exhausted all my leave and,
you know, I'll just go in and I'll leave without pay status.
but what is the authority to go on leave without pay for a year?
it's as people were bringing in doctor's notes and, and, you
know, promises of coming back, it was something that I think
was a past practice that was being allowed.
and quite frankly, maybe even being done in a vacuum or, you
know, through workarounds of like, I'm going to come back
next week. Okay, great.
you'll come back next week and then next week comes and then I
have a different, you know, a different set of circumstances
and things like that. And so we really just had to get
that under control. And like I said, we, we got to a
point where once you look at it holistically, you really realize
like, this is a huge problem that is affecting not just one
shift. It's affecting everybody.
it's affecting the public safety system as a whole.
and we've got to do something about this.
and so we really just clamped down and said, we're not doing
this anymore. There will be no more leave
without pay. So you don't offer leave without
pay at all and not okay. And what are the leave
parameters for medical leave? Parental leave for ouc.
so we follow the district's guidance from d.c.
so the pfl, the the 12 weeks of fmla, the parental leave, things
like that. But outside of that, if you have
leave that you have accumulated that you can use, we're happy to
let you use that. We do have a policy that only
two people per shift can be off on scheduled leave.
so only two people from each shift on police, fire and ems.
of course, call outs are different.
if you call out on sick unscheduled leave.
and then also if you're calling out on unscheduled leave like
sick leave and you don't have it, then we're holding you a
wall and you have to bring in a doctor's note and we're putting
you, we're referring you to the union for attendance counseling.
and if it becomes problematic, 40 hours of of awol, then.
we are separating you because it's not important.
12 weeks of paid leave for different purposes, whatever
purposes the the dpm allows for. Yes, whatever those purposes.
however that is done because that's done through dc.
so however that's allowed. Have you seen that, donna.
oh, you see, we have I have how many cases of that have you
seen? Numerous.
probably too many to tell you. Right off hand.
but I mean, we had there were some people that had like three
and four different leave packets.
and so really just getting to the bottom of it about like,
what is actually allowable or how did this, this get to be?
what is your policy around use it or lose it for or if at all,
for accumulated leave, earned leave.
so. We have people that are in use
that have used it or lose it status.
usually at the end of the summer, around september, we
start to tell supervisors, hey, you've got folks that you have
people that are going to use leave or going to either lose
their leave if they don't use it.
it used to be the position of the agency that we would just
ask for a rollover. I, we don't do that anymore.
this is this will be the third year that I will say to
employees, you're not rolling that leave over.
so please, let's come up with a game plan so that you can use
that leave because there are some employees that have worked
at ouc for 40 plus years, and they have hundreds and hundreds
of hours of leave because they, they get a lot of leave every
pay period. And so we've gotten to a place
after the pandemic where a lot of leave that wasn't used was
allowed to be rolled. And it just makes it hard to do
day to day operations and really affects things.
so my goal and what I feel that I have done successfully is
really just talk to people about what the expectation is.
this system doesn't work if you're not here.
so how do we get you here? And how do we make sure that you
can still use your leave and. The calls get answer, the calls
get dispatched. And so we do not I have not
asked for rollover leave for use or lose.
what do you mean not have asked for?
you can ask to give exemptions and let people roll over their
leave and I. I have not done that for the
last two years. Every year it is use it or lose
it. That's correct.
and over the last two years that you've been implementing that
new policy, have you seen staffing levels increase per
shift as a result of that? Yes, because, I mean, people
you've got to come to work. I mean, we can get creative.
we can let people leave early. You know, if you want to leave
early or use a couple hours here, a couple hours there when
things aren't as busy on an overnight shift, we'll let
people do that so that they don't lose it.
they don't have to take the whole 12 hours in a chunk in an
effort so that they don't lose it, but they know to use that
leave first so that they don't lose it.
all right. So I'm glad you mentioned 12
hours. Has there been any efforts over
the last year to move the optionality for eight hour
shifts? We've had the discussions and
people really like the 12 hours, because it is the shift that
offers them the every other weekend off.
there's not another shift out there that allows every other
weekend off. A lot of the shifts are sliding
shifts, so they might get one full weekend every 3 to 4
months. So we continue to ask people, we
continue to take the temperature on that.
they see our conversations at this, these hearings, and when I
get back, they'll be like, please, we love the 12 hours.
we I'm always open to the discussions of eights and tens
and often reminded that the tens didn't work previously when they
had them. But certainly I'm always open
to, to it. What about a combo pilot of some
people with an eight hour shift and some people with a 12 hour
shift or multiple shifts, so that if you're on an eight hour,
you still get, you know, weekends off in, in time.
we can we can look at that. The, the problem, I'll just be
really transparent with you is what, what happens is we have
this workforce of everything is done by seniority at uc.
so we have a workforce that has this like big divide in the
middle. People that I've worked there
for like 25 plus years and people that have are newer,
probably five or less years. The five or less years will
always work friday, saturday, sunday, monday, tuesday and have
like wednesday and thursday off because their lowest in
seniority. And they're the bigger group who
doesn't want they're the ones saying, we don't want that
because they want the weekends. They don't want the random
tuesday and wednesday off. So I'm open to that.
I can certainly take that back and work with our union
leadership to, to see what that looks like.
and again, like, you know, I, I trust that you are having these
conversations and that, you know, that people are telling
you that I guess I would still say one, I have heard from other
members who work at ou si about a concern about this, but two,
it is just such a long time period to be sitting and be
attentive and be fully focused on what you and I are in
agreement with is vital. Life or death work, and so I'm
totally sensitive to the reality that people want a weekend off.
that makes total sense. But is there another way then to
reshift it so that it's alternating, maybe smaller
cohorts doing each shift on a rotating basis, so that there's
still access to that time off? I just don't want to I
understand the weekend off concern, but it feels like there
might be a resolution that still accommodates for that and
recognizes that as human beings, we want people to be attentive
and handling this really, really important work that asking them
to do it for 12 hours at a time might not be.
the most sustainable. Absolutely agree.
and coming in at 5:00 in the morning or 530 in the morning
also too. So absolutely, I get it.
okay. I just feel as though we have
had this conversation for several years, and it feels like
it might not be the right answer, but I don't know that it
feels like any action has actually been taken around
trying something out that might lead to more attendance.
because again, I'm really focused on the attendance and
even these overtime costs, like in ways that we can reduce that.
so, you know, I think, you know, earlier when we, when staffing
was critically low, it's really hard to, to staff an 8 or 10
hour shift when you don't have staffing.
and so that was really a roadblock there.
now it's just seems like this is what, what people like, like
that's the feedback we're getting.
but what I can certainly do is make a commitment to, to work
with, with president knox from our union and get a survey out.
and we'll gladly share that with, with you as oversight and
say, here's what the people have said and will propose, you know,
we'll propose some things and look at the fiscal impact of
that, too. Okay.
thank you. Yes, absolutely.
okay. So one of the other pieces that
the oig reported was they said the agency lacks a comprehensive
risk management framework. What is your response to that
and what are the costs of our current quality assurance and
risk management tools? Yes.
so we have a risk manager. I'm just gonna look here.
where is that? On the page 12.
okay. The risk management.
okay. So right now the the risk
management framework, the quality assurance and risk
management. Right now we this is what I was
talking to councilmember frumin about.
we were only able to do about 30,000 of our total quality
assurance reviews on 911 and only about a about a third of
what we were doing on 311. So now that we have ai involved
and we're doing 100%, the cost of that is about $1.8 million.
and the risk management activity is about $38,000.
the framework was around like the physical risks.
and now what we can do with the with the ai system that we're
using comms coach through govworks is provide our risk
manager a comprehensive report to show like what the risk is.
so this morning I ran like a risk report based on all of the
calls that we've taken. And the risk was less than 1%
that people are compliant. They're doing things that we've
been able to flag individuals who are struggling.
and those are things that we weren't able to do.
when oig ran their report, because we weren't evaluating
all of our calls. So we've you know, we've
provided oig with with what we have now with the reporting from
the ai tool that we're using. And so I think that we've helped
to, to mitigate that and kind of build that framework out based
on the feedback that we're getting from, from the tools
that we have implemented. Thank you.
in terms of the technology and cad reliability, how much does
the capital budget for fy 27 dedicate to replacing or
upgrading the nine one, one and 311 hardware, software, radios,
servers, other firewall needs for the infrastructure of the
communications? Okay, that is.
$1,251,238. And that is for the upgrades to
911 and 311. And specifically the cad system.
the 311 system, the the 3111 upgrade, the 911 call routing
dashboard and the cad on call upgrade, which will allow us to
interconnect with the federal partners that we need to
integrate with, as well as like the folks that we take calls
for, but then send out to. So like us park police think us
park police, if you're in a crash on the rock creek parkway,
we take that, we dispatch out fims, but not mpd.
we send the call over to their dispatch so that they can send
out park police officers, as well as our neighbors.
arlington 911 has just gone to the cad, the on call, so we'll
be able to see their calls and the dispatch like as soon as we
put it in or they put it in, it'll go instantaneously for the
bridge responses. Okay, great.
and when are you anticipating that upgrade to be complete?
that is next year in 27. It's in 27.
right. But do we know when.
so we actually have a meeting with our vendor next month to
talk about roadmap for it. So we have to look at the, the
framework, how cad is set up. And so once we do that, so we
have a meeting next month. And then we come up with a
timeline to go with the upgrade. Okay.
but all of the money you need to carry out that upgrade is
included in this budget. Yes, yes.
okay. Okay.
it looks like you had some underspending across some of the
programs and divisions last year.
can you provide some clarity there of where from your
numbers, you see, has underspent and why you think that is?
so? A couple of things.
first, in fy 25, there was a spending freeze and also just
the implementation of some contracts, technology contracts
that are actually budgeted for fy 26 that we're working on now.
so those two items made up for most of the spending in fy 25.
okay. And which divisions were those
in in technology, both in technology?
yes. Yeah.
I think the other important thing too is we're still, as an
industry, suffering a little bit from supply chain issues.
and especially now with the tariffs and things happening
around that. So getting things in on time, or
when we had hoped we would get them in or being pushed out.
so and then now that they're coming in, it's costing more
than it would have it had they come in.
okay then. Okay, that makes sense.
but sorry, you said that there are two divisions that you had
underspending in, and then it was due to technology.
are those technology divisions or.
I'm sorry, I misspoke. Not two divisions, but two, two.
reasons why there was underspending was the in part,
the freeze and then implementation of I.t.
contracts. Understood.
thank you. Okay.
so you were not anticipating that type of underspending next
year, assuming congress allows us to spend our own budget?
no. That's correct.
okay. And things cost more, so.
yeah. Right.
okay. So our good old hotel occupancy
fee has risen again. Talk to me about this fee and
the special purpose revenue fund, how you've used those
funds over the last year. And if the use of those funds
are outpacing the revenue that you're yielding, why why you
think this is important? Sure.
so the ou see in washington, d.c., in this whole region has
always been a leader in next generation 911.
we we estimated just this week that since we started talking
about next gen in this region, that washington, d.c., has spent
about $10 million. I'm sorry, 50, $50 million in
ten years on the planning, implementation, and upkeep of
next generation 911. We are at a point right now
where we're on a regional esi net, which is the core services
that allows us to get location, transfer calls with location,
all the things that people have come accustomed to here.
we the region is recommitting that right now the contract is
is coming up. And so we have to recompete that
with the vendors. We're going to spend at least $2
million to enter into a new contract in the initial year,
and probably 2 to 5 each year after that, just for the
technology. And so and that doesn't include
any other newer technology that comes that we might have to
implement as cell phones expand their capabilities.
and so it's a very, very expensive endeavor.
and we're at a place right now where we're, we're getting down
to zero. And so if we don't do something,
we're going to be in a place where we're going to be looking
for money or having to make decisions between, do we have
people here to answer the call, or do we have the technology to
process the call? And that's where no.
911 center ever wants to be. So that's why it's really
important to us. That's why the $0.80 per night
of occupied rooms is important. I know that hotels pay a pbx,
but they they don't pay it in a way that every phone is paying
their. It's like it's, it's 8 to 1
ratio. So they're paying one fee for
every eight rooms right now. That's not sustainable.
I don't know specifically about individual hotels in washington,
dc, but nationwide hotels are starting to take phones out of
the room because carrie's law, which is a federal law, requires
that 911 has to be able to be dialed directly from a hotel
phone. That change over from having to
push nine and then 911 to get an outside line is very, very
expensive undertaking. And so a lot of hotels are just
taking the phones out so that they don't have to meet that
that law. And so one of two things is
going to have to happen. You know, a couple of things
have to happen here. Folks are are going to have to
make these big fundamental changes to their public exchange
systems in the hotels so that their carriers, law compliant,
or they're going to have to pay fines or I think we do this
because we have to be able to fund the 911 system.
those are that's kind of where we're at, and that's where a lot
of states are across the nation. We haven't had an increase in
our 911 fee in over 20 years, and we're we're stand alone at
this point. Are you nervous about hotels as
a result of this fee removing their phone lines and then that
ultimately decreasing the amount available to you in the special
purpose fund? I am, I am I'm nervous about it
because of the law. Because as the law starts to get
enforced, I think they will start to remove those phones.
also, as the fcc has ruled that copper lines can start to come
out, people are going to start getting rid of their landlines
because the fcc has just ruled that people who have the old
copper lines like that, verizon and at&t, those vendors, those
providers are those those telcos have been since march able to
now send out letters to people, letting them know that they they
are either going to have to switch to a cable provider like
fios or comcast, or, and the landline that they're accustomed
to is going to be gone because it's just incredibly expensive
to upkeep copper. So how does the fund work or how
will it change? So the fund would change in that
the hotels would have to remit $0.80 for every booked night
quarterly, just like the telephone companies have to
remit to us on a quarterly basis based on the fees that they
collect from the landlines. We would put that into a fund.
we would use that fund first and foremost to pay for the
technologies for next generation 901.
I know there's concern about there are allowable expenses
through the fcc. It does say that you can pay for
personnel and things of those nature.
but what we really see it as paying for is the technology
piece. It will be enough to cover the
technology at the ook. Is there a cap on the fund?
no, there's no cap with what the fcc says is that if you divert
funds, if you use funds for something that is not an
allowable expense, then you become ineligible for federal
grant funding. The last time that we received
federal grant funding was 2016. That was the last time that they
had federal grant funding for. For next generation 911.
it was from spectrum sale. So how much have you projected
to generate from the 80 cent? Seven.
it's about 7 million annually, about 7 million.
but in theory, if more is generated, that would still all
go to uc for a set of permitted uses.
that's it should correct. Okay.
and without that, 7 million, you were going to have to find 7
million somewhere to pay for the cost of next generation.
I want because. So we had a legacy 911 system in
washington dc. And then we moved to a next
generation 911 system. And at one point in time, we had
to keep both up, because that was the rule that the fcc said,
you have to keep both up to make sure that if next gen doesn't
take the call, the legacy system routes it to your center.
so we did that. And then we got to a point where
we were able to get rid of legacy.
so the cost went down a little bit, but not a lot.
now we have this next gen system.
we can't go back to legacy system because they're not
supported. Verizon was the provider that
provided that. And they don't provide 911
services anymore. So it's not like we can trade in
the new for something old that costs less.
we're we have what we have and this is what it costs.
and so what happens if that fund is does not reach 7 million.
we'll have to find it from other sources.
we'll have to to, to get it from the general fund would would be
the the crux of it, I guess. I mean, like, I'm always worried
about the hotel tax as is because I think that we are not
competitive where we need to be in the region, and especially
for group bookings, that is oftentimes cheaper.
and other locations. We're missing out on a lot of
that traffic here, but separately, my concern for uc
and you all having the budget that you need, why not just
budget through the general fund of what you need, as opposed to
relying on the special purpose fund?
that is a bit unpredictable. Those are certainly
conversations that that we can have, you know, with I don't
want to get ahead of the executive, but certainly
conversations we can have. But we each state has a special
purpose fund. Some fund it through a fee on
phone, some fund it through through a hotel occupancy tax.
so this is very common. This is common.
this is this is common in areas where there's tourism.
okay. Okay.
well thank you director. That concludes my questions for
you today. As always, I want to give you a
chance. If you want to highlight
anything about the budget that we didn't get a chance to talk
about or any closing thoughts. You know, I would just say that
our commitment remains to the residents and visitors of
washington, dc, to the people who show up each and every day
at the office of unified communications to do good work
for the public safety ecosystem. And I would just like to thank
mayor bowser for her commitment to ook deputy mayor pia, chief
carol and chief donnelly for their continued support.
thank you to you, council member pinto, to aloy and to your staff
for all their support. Thank you.
great. Thank you very much.
right back at you. Appreciate you all and look
forward to staying in close contact over the next couple of
weeks as we move through this will do.
thank you so much. Thank you.
all right. That concludes our portion of
the hearing today discussing the office of unified
communications. We are now turning to the
metropolitan police department, or mpd, where we will hear from
our interim chief of police, jeffrey carroll.
hi, everybody. Welcome.
if I could ask that everybody state their name and position
for the record, please start with you.
good afternoon. I'm jeff carroll, interim chief
of police. Metropolitan police department.
I'm an agency fiscal officer, metropolitan police department.
patricia campbell, director of resource accountability, mpd.
great. Well, welcome to you all.
thank you for being here. If I can ask that everybody turn
their microphones on, we're going to swear everybody in.
do you swear or affirm under penalty of law that the
testimony you're about to provide before this committee
and the council of the district of columbia is the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I do, I do thank you,
thank you all, chief carroll, welcome.
and I'd like to invite you to make any opening statement you
have. All right.
well, thank you, council councilman pinto.
good afternoon. My name is jeff carroll.
I'm the interim chief of police for the metropolitan police
department. I'm pleased to be here today to
discuss mpd's budget for fiscal year 2027 or fy 27.
I'm going to summarize my testimony to stay within the
time limit, but the full testimony is available on our
website at mpdc.dc.gov. Mayor bowser, steadfast
commitment to public safety into mpd is evident now in her 12th
budget, as it was in her first. A safe city is essential to
maintaining a strong dc, a principle that has guided mayor
bowser's administration over the past 12 years.
at a time when difficult decisions are being made, I
appreciate the mayor's budget ensures that mpd will be able to
continue full operations, including recruiting and hiring
new officers, and deploying technology to help combat crime.
first, I'll give you a brief overview of the budget mpd's fy
27 operating budget provides funding of approximately $688
million, an increase of 14% from the approved fy 26 budget.
as always, about nine out of every $10 in this budget is for
people, including salaries, benefits and overtime of the
local budget. Less than $2 million, or just
one third of 1%, is not already committed to salaries, benefits,
major contracts such as the police and fire clinic, and
vital programmatic spending. This fraction of a percent
covers a wide variety of small but necessary operating
expenditures, such as language access, interpretation,
translation, promotional testing, and subscriptions to
legal databases. In the mayor's fy 27 budget, it
supports mpd's mission with critical investments in people
and crime fighting technology. Mpd's top priority remains its
employees, especially hiring and retaining dedicated and talented
sworn officers. With 3157 sworn members right
now, mpd. Sworn staffing continues to
decline in the past five years. Mpd.
sworn staffing is down the equivalent of two police
districts, reaching the lowest level in more than 50 years.
mayor bowser's budget will enable mpd to hire as many
officers as we believe we can, but based on our current trends,
that is projected to be below 3100 officers by september 2027,
mpd struggle with staffing mirrors national trends in
december 2025, the national policing institute identified
the workforce crisis as the top high stakes trend impacting us
policing. Mpi also broadened, broadly
outlined the solution. The winning strategy will shift
from a singular focus on recruitment to a holistic one on
retention, wellness, job satisfaction and workforce
modernization. Mpd is focused on these issues
for years, so there aren't many low hanging fruit left to grab.
we have a nationally recognized recruiting and hiring program,
and we were one of the first local agencies to offer a hiring
bonus. The fy 27 budget continues to
fund the hiring bonus, along with short term housing
assistance for recruits moving into the city, and mayor
bowser's commitment to innovative technology helps keep
pace with emerging crime trends and innovative criminals.
so what else can we do? We know we can't outspend all
the agencies that we're competing against.
given that we looked at our top challenges and our competitive
advantages to identify low or no cost proposals to broaden our
recruiting pool, the budget support act, or bsa, includes
includes proposals to support hiring and retention.
first, I urge the council to reconsider the proposal from
last year to allow new recruits to be hired with no college
credits, and earn the 60 college credits through an mpd
partnership with an accredited college.
frederick community college has evaluated the mpd recruit
training program and agreed to grant 41 credits for successful
completion of a coursework. Under the proposed program, fcc
will provide 19 credits of classroom training at mpd for
each cohort. This change is absolutely
essential because in this region, only mpd and arlington
county police still require college credits for new
recruits. This leaves mpd at a significant
disadvantage in recruiting new officers.
our proposal does not eliminate the college credit requirement,
but it provides a different path for achieving it.
we appreciate that. Last year, the council approved
the compromise legislation by reducing the pre hiring
requirement from 60 to 40 credits.
however, since then we've not had any applicants applying
under it. One key reason is likely that
most college students who drop out of school do so in the first
academic year, according to recent data, 22% of all first
time, full time freshmen drop out of college.
this is more likely to impact first generation college
students. This proposal will give more
young adults a fair shot, while helping mpd to begin to rebuild
its sworn force. I urge the council to to pass
this amendment. If the 60 college.
excuse me if the 60 college credit requirement is one of the
top hurdles in hiring mpd cadet program is one of our strengths.
the cadet program allows mpd to bring in young adults to earn a
good salary for part time work, while completing college
coursework at udc. The program provides not just a
scholarship, but also life skills and lessons.
it can help keep young people on a positive path to success so
they'll be able to they'll be still be eligible to be hired as
recruit by the time they reach the necessary age.
the bsa expands mpd cadet eligibility while mpd may not be
the only cadet program in the region, it is one of the most
strongest and most established. We can use this competitive
advantage to recruit young adults graduating from high
school in the region, who may also want to become a police
officer. Our program harnesses that early
interest in law enforcement and keeps them employed and engaged
until they're eligible to apply to become recruits.
I recognize the cadet program has been, by design, a pathway
for d.c. Students and residents. I agree that it's important for
d.c. Students to have top priority, but mpd has been
authorized for 150 cadets for years.
yet actual cadet staffing has consistently hovered around 120
to 130 cadets. As we hire more cadets, others
graduate and transition into recruits.
under the proposal, d.c. Residents would still have a
hiring preference, but up to 25 slots could be filled by cadets
from jurisdictions within the metro.
washington council of governments area.
we think this pool of applicants is a good prospect for the
department and for the city. While the proposals regarding
college credit requirements and the cadet program would expand
the hiring pool, it's also important to consider retention
efforts. Mpd has strong pension plan is,
on the one hand, helpful for recruitment and on the other
makes retirement a financially sound decision.
swarm members are able to retire, collect their pension
and take another job or career. Impedes long standing senior
police officer program has provided an option to allow
members to apply to return to mpd after retirement, at a rate
of pay no more than the middle step of an officer's pay scale.
through this program, mpd and the city have been able to
retain trained and experienced members at a lower salary.
it's important to note that mpd retains the discretion of
whether to rehire the member. Poor performers are not.
welcome back. Unfortunately, legislation
passed by the council in 2022 had what we think was an
unintended impact on the program.
the council codified mpd practice by prohibiting hiring
any sworn members who had previously committed serious
misconduct to ensure that poor performers from other
departments did not get a job within mpd.
mpd supported this change as it was already our practice.
however, because our pspos are rehired, members with serious
misconduct in their history are no longer eligible.
this includes members who may have violated policy 10 or 20
years ago, but then have continued to serve mpd in the
city very well. After that, the bsa would modify
this prohibition for the sbu program.
they would be prohibited from being rehired only if a member
received a suspension of ten or more days in the five years
prior to retirement. To be clear, mpd would still
maintain the discretion not to rehire someone as an fto if they
would not be a valuable member. But the amendment would
acknowledge that discipline has been.
the discipline is intended to be rehabilitative, and mpd is in a
position to determine whether a retired mpd member can continue
to have a positive impact. Moving on from the staffing
discussion, strategic investments in technology make
our crime fighting efforts more effective and efficient.
technology can be a force multiplier, which is essential
given our current staffing levels.
mayor bowser's fy 27 budget continues to make strategic
investments to make our communities safer.
cctvs and license plate readers are proven technology that can
provide real time information to responding officers.
they support better investigations and prosecutions
that ultimately deter crime and help inform the deployment of
resources. Lpr have been valuable in
locating missing persons, carjack vehicles and vehicles
used in violent crime. Mpd has been able to leverage
these tools to even greater effect in our real time crime
center. Their use has contributed to
high closure rates for violent crime er closure rates.
currently and historically exceed the average for
comparable sized cities, as reported to the fbi.
closing cases is especially difficult for shootings in
public space, which has long driven dc's violent crime.
for instance. There is rarely dna in these
cases, and it can be harder to identify any relationship
between the victim and the suspect.
increased use of cameras helps to bridge this gap.
mayor bowser's fy 27 budget continues.
investment in this vital technology, with 145 cctvs and
50 lprs. In addition, the budget funds an
expansion of mpd's drone program with the purchase of six indoor
and eight outdoor drones. The indoor drones are needed for
use in barricades and other life safety missions.
the additional outdoor drones are needed to ensure equipment
is available for operations and training, even when some are
undergoing routine maintenance. Lastly, the budget includes an
annual planned investment in replacement vehicles with 240
marked and unmarked cruisers and 23 motorcycles and scooters.
in addition to the funding I've highlighted, the bsa includes a
provision to support greater efficiency in handling
fingerprinting and the fbi background checks.
this bsa provision will enable mpd to apply to the fbi for
authority to contract with a channeler.
to address this challenge. A channeler is an fbi approved
private contractor that acts as a liaison to submit fingerprints
to the fbi. Dc must be must be identified in
the law enforcement categories of individuals, subject to the
background check. And the fbi must approve the
legislation before mpd can contract with the chandler.
however, the fbi will not review proposed legislation or provide
feedback unless it's enacted. The language approved in the fy
26 bsa was deemed insufficient by the fbi, underscoring the
uncertainty of federal approval. This proposed revision is
informed by some feedback that the fbi did provide on the fy 26
bsa. Multiple agencies and industries
have asked for this opportunity to help streamline their
administrative processes. Last week, the committee of the
whole approved similar legislation.
the background check adjustment amendment act of 2025.
however, that bill focuses just on just one industry background
checks for entities providing services to children and youth.
I encourage the council to support the more expansive
program provision in the bsa. Lastly, I'd like to address the
use of overtime, a significant cost driver in mpd's budget.
first, let me reassure the council and our residents that
I'm committed to being a trustworthy, worthy steward of
dc resources. Since being named interim chief,
I've been working with my team to identify efficiencies and
overtime usage while maintaining a positive public safety impact
all over time. Must be approved by a
supervisor. In addition, overtime is
reviewed each pay period across the agency and by managers in
each bureau. There have been some initial
successes, with a 14% reduction almost 50,000 hours in non-court
local overtime hours when compared to the same period last
year. Drivers of overtime correlate
with historically low staffing. Mpd must be able to respond to
calls for service while continuing proactive crime
deterrent efforts and meeting the unique needs of the nation's
capital. Although the city has enjoyed a
positive start to 2026, with historic lows and serious
violent crime over the first three months, violence has
ticked up in april. Combating this upturn may
require local overtime. Other factors, such as the
continued prevalence of teen takeovers, will also draw a
line, will also draw on limited local resources.
in addition, as the country celebrates its 250th birthday,
d.c. Is expected to host numerous large scale events,
including a two week grand great america state fair, the grand
prix race and more. The district may be hosting
record breaking crowds throughout the summer.
mpd will certainly need to use additional overtime to staff
these events and maintain response to residents and a
presence in our neighborhoods. While most of this overtime will
likely be reimbursed by federal dollars, there may be some
impact on local overtime. Lastly, even if overtime
decreases, the costs will increase in fy 26.
this is the first year with a higher pay scale under a new
collective bargaining agreement for sworn members, the new pay
scale incorporates cumulative rates of 13% for fy 24 through
fy 26. In closing, I'd like to thank
you for the opportunity to present mayor bowser's fy 27
budget for mpd. Like several recent years, in
recent years, the fy 27 budget will require difficult choices.
this year started out very strong, with levels of lower
crime than d.c. Has experienced since perhaps the 1960s.
however, the violence the past month has been a stark reminder
that we still have far to go to ensure all of our neighborhoods
and residents are safe. In short, we cannot take our
foot off the gas. The funding for mpd and the
mayor's budget is critical so that we can continue the
significant progress. We've made.
a safe city makes all other progress possible.
therefore, I strongly urge this committee and the council to
fully fund mpd's fy 27 budget. Thank you.
great. Well, thank you very much, chief
carroll and team. And I want to thank everybody
who works at mpd who's here today.
and patrolling our streets and handling every position in a
very difficult year and environment, and appreciate all
of your service to the district and in keeping everybody safe.
yes, ma'am. Thank you.
so I want to start with a discussion around staffing, and
I appreciate that there's been a recognition in this budget that
we need to focus on hiring and building back up our our force
that is now facing, as you mentioned, a 50 year staffing
low. How does this budget
specifically focus on hiring so that it is not an inevitability
of what you said in october or september of 2027, that we are
still at 3000 officers. Yes.
the budget supports hiring 216 ftes.
it also maintains the hiring bonuses that we already have for
our members. It maintains the housing
allowance that we provide to new folks that join the department,
as well, and it also fully funds the the police officer retention
program, which helps to retain officers.
but outside of that, the real area, I think that can open up
the aperture is the the amendments in the budget support
act, like I mentioned inside my testimony, only mpd and
arlington county have. The 60 college credit
requirement. So the proposal in the bsa is to
allow folks to to join the department with no credits go
through the academy, which opens up a wider pool of applicants
than we currently have. And this is a limitation, like I
said, that we only we have in arlington, even places like
montgomery county have lowered that.
so what it does is it only lowers it to come in.
you still gain those credits and you still leave the police
academy with the required 60 college credits.
so it's just another way to, to actually get to that same goal
of everyone having 60 credits before they leave the police
academy actually hit the streets, but it opens up an
applicant pool to an area that we have not been able to, to
touch in some time. Okay.
and talk about what goes on at the police academy.
we've seen a change in requirements as a point of entry
for some of our federal agencies.
talk about why this would be different because of what goes
on at the police academy. Sure.
so there's no change other than the initial entry into the to be
hired into the credits. There is no change to any of the
other requirements. So the same requirements in the
police academy, physical requirements, educational
requirements are there. And actually they would get
additional credits. So they would finish the police
academy. There's still 19 credits.
they'd have to have to get to the 60.
so they received additional classes as a cohort from
frederick community college before they actually graduate.
so they would actually spend about an extra month or so in
the police academy to make sure they have all that.
so they go through all the regular things that police
officers get as far as dc code, you know, report writing,
driving emergency vehicles, firearms, and the different less
than lethal weapons that we use. Also, how to interact with
different types of community members, how to interact with
juveniles, all the things that we do as far as first aid and
those types of things, how to handle first demonstrations.
but on top of that, they would get additional coursework that
would also support that. So there's no lowering of any
standards of the academy. There's actually additional
education that this would provide.
great. Thank you for that clarity.
how many officers are we losing a month of for?
let's start with five. Six.
approximately 20 a month. Okay.
so we're losing about 240 officers a year.
yeah. We assume that we'll lose about
240 to 245 a year. Okay, so you just said that this
budget accounts for 216 new hires.
yes. We believe this budget will
support 216 new hires. So if that level of attrition
continues, this budget is still. There's still the no no, the
number is going to lead to a reduced force size.
no, it absolutely would. And so that's why we talk so
much about the budget support act and the need to open that
aperture. We believe we can fund.
we'll be able to make up the difference if we are able to get
more people in. But we didn't want to come in
with an unrealistic expectation. If those those amendments are
passed through there, we basically will sit in the same
the same boat that we're in right now.
as far as the applicant pool of who's there.
so really passing, that would allow us to go above that.
but we didn't want to, you know, underestimate what actually
would be there. So that's why it's so important
for me with some of the provisions that the budget
support act, as well as the spo portion of that, where we talk
about changing the requirements before that requirement was put
into place, we were maintaining a much higher number of senior
police officers in the agency. And that year we had had a big
drop. We have not really picked back
up that number of senior police officers since then.
which requirement? Sure.
so the sba requirement regarding the the serious misconduct.
so I referenced it in the testimony.
so under the the comprehensive police reform act, if you have
any serious misconduct, you cannot be hired.
the unintended consequence with that is you could be an mpd
officer who, you know, 28 years ago, you had sustained serious
misconduct. But for the prior 26 years,
since then, you've been a model employee.
you've done great things. You've had no other
reoccurrences. However, currently the law does
not does not allow us to rehire because technically it's a hire
that person back to as an employee, so they can't be a
senior police officer. So every year we rehire our
senior police officers. The year that was enacted came
through, we had a big drop in senior police officers because
of that new requirement. So this legislation would it
would still leave a requirement in there as it relates to
serious misconduct within the past five years, you cannot have
a suspension of more than ten days.
and it still allows mpd to make the determination if the person
should be an employee or not. And that authority still lies
with you. Yes.
so would lie with you under this proposed language.
exactly. It would still lie with us.
however, if you did have a more than a ten day suspension within
the past five years, you would not be eligible to come back.
so it really addresses that concern of folks who, you know,
more than five years ago may have had serious misconduct.
it would allow them to apply. It doesn't mean they would be
hired, but it would allow them to be considered for the
process. And how many officers do you
think that expanded authority for you would yield in the
senior officer program a year, let's say?
let me see if I know the year that we that it got implemented.
we had a fairly sizable drop in error in our spo numbers.
I don't know if I have that number right on hand right now,
but I can get back to you what it would look like.
but it's just a rehire designation.
so it's these are officers who already work at mpd, but they
wouldn't be able to become senior officers.
as a result, we're losing them entirely from the department.
so it's back to the retention portion of it.
so we would be able to retain because remember, to get our
numbers up, we need not only to get new people in the door, but
we need to retain the folks that we have now that's here.
so it's a two fold system. Are there any other ways that we
can get more folks into the senior officer program?
I know there have been conversations about a drop
program. I don't know where we're at with
that. I know that's another area that
folks that have interest in, you know, the things that we do
right now as far as the police officer retention program, the
educational incentives both towards the end of their career
and that period between 3 and 8 years, that's been successful as
well. This budget does continue to to
fund that as well. So if we passed the portion of
the bsa that did what we tried to do last year as part of our
piece, d.c. Bill, we tried to change the standards for the
point of entry under recognition that a lot of people don't and
will not have a college degree in a traditional way moving
forward, and that we want that training to go through the mpd
academy. There were changes made to the
bill as we went through the legislative process, but if that
passed in this budget and the the spigot, so to speak, turned
on to allow for more applicants, then where would we find the
funding from to ensure that we can actually hire them?
if we've only accommodated for 216 officers and are losing 240?
absolutely. That's a great question.
so if we're able to bring in more officers, then we can start
shifting that money from the overtime expenditures, which
have gone up to the new officers, which have a much
lower salary. Same thing with their senior
police officer program, an officer who's got 25 years on as
an officer, or maybe even a sergeant or whatever, they make
a much higher salary than a senior police officer who comes
in a mid range of the officer scale.
so those are ways that getting new people in actually would,
over time would come down. So the money could start to
shift like that. Okay.
you mentioned that actually, I'm going to come back to that to
make sure I can ask about something else.
I'll return. So for overtime funding, you
know, I appreciate the agency's effort to more accurately,
accurately reflect what the overtime needs will be, which I
think has been misrepresented to some in the public that this is
an increase in the budget, when really it is an accurate
reflect, more accurate reflection of the projections
that we've seen. But.
I guess tell me about how decisions are made with
overtime. You mentioned that you found
some efficiencies in overtime spending.
what were those efficiencies and what types of events warrant
absolutely needed overtime versus events that may be able
to be handled a different way without reliance on overtime?
yeah. So overtime is a very
complicated issue. So there's certain things
overtime we talk about special events.
think about five keys marathons, things like that.
those are in most cases, unless it's, you know, like a july 4th
or something. Those are those are funded by
whatever entity is putting that on.
so that's a reimbursable detail. So of course that's overtime
that's funded through them. Members are paid that way.
then you have other overtime that we have to handle.
things like the president, united states, when he moves,
the vice president moves every day.
those members aren't on duty. And that's insertion of overtime
that comes with that. I think to the the
correspondents dinner this weekend, the staffing that we
had on the outside of that, that's mandatory overtime that
we have to staff to make sure the perimeter of those things
are are safe in coordination with the secret service.
there's overtime that's associated with that.
the same is true when the king is here in town.
the king is a high level dignitary.
so in order to staff the motorcade routes with that,
those are overtime that we have to staff.
so there's kind of that that bucket of overtime that's over
there. And then you have things like
our different sporting venues. So think about, you know, nats
park, capital one arena, audi field officers that provide
enhanced visibility around on the outside of those facilities
because the inside is handled by the organization.
but the city has an obligation on the outside of those areas to
provide enhanced presence, traffic closures and controls.
you can think about the officers that help to get the vehicles
out of there at the end of the games and the end of the
concerts and things like that. So that's another area of
overtime, we would say. And then you have court, you
know, when officers make an arrest, they have to go to
court. In many cases, unless the
officer is assigned to work day work.
a lot of times there's overtime that's incurred as it relates to
going to court to to testify, as well as going to the dmv.
if there's dmv hearings that are related with that.
and then we have, you know, overtime as it relates to just
operational activities. So what does that mean?
maybe you have an arrest at the end of your shift.
you can't just stop the arrest and go home.
you have to stay incur overtime to make sure the arrest is fully
processed. The paperwork is completed, and
to move on like that, then we may have crime trends, right?
we may have an uptick in violent crime that may require
additional resources to be deployed, maybe because we're
low on staffing, maybe because we've seen an uptick in crime in
a specific area. So we, the watch commanders,
along with the district commanders to look at that.
and they would use overtime to backfill to make sure we have
the appropriate resources that are on the street or to address,
and maybe an increase, for example, in violent crime inside
an area. So it's kind of a long answer,
but there's different buckets that are looked at at all over
time, has to be approved by a supervisor beforehand.
if overtime is used for an operational plan, like a thing
like I spoke about, whereas maybe there's an increase in
violent crime in the area, then the commanders would develop a
plan of how they're going to use that overtime to deploy those
resources in that area. And then we would evaluate that
to see, is it something how long do we need to continue that?
okay. All right.
thank you. I'm going to return to this, but
we've been joined by my at large colleague, councilmember robert
white. And I will turn to you now for a
ten minute round. Thank you very much, chairperson
pinto chief and miss mcgaffin, I thank you for being with us
today. I'm currently chairing my own
hearing, so I will be in and out and just want to touch on a
couple of issues. A a constituent recently reached
out after noticing what they believe may be a pattern
involving their clients. In one case, an individual
stopped near north capitol street and rhode island avenue
on march 2nd was arrested by mpd for an alleged expired tag
released from the second district station and then
detained by ice outside of the station.
in a second case. On march 25th, an uber driver
stopped near children's hospital for speeding, was arrested by
mpd, held overnight, transported to d.c. Superior court and later
taken into ice custody. What policies govern mpd
coordination or information sharing with federal immigration
authorities and situations like these?
yeah, so, I mean, there's a lot d.c. Code that discusses
specifically what information we can and can't share basically
kind of comes down to is once you're inside custody, you can't
share any information as it relates to that.
on the mpd side, the two instances that you refer to
specifically, I'm not familiar with, but that's kind of the
outline of what the law is. So mpd does not engage in civil
immigration enforcement. We shouldn't we're not asking
people. We're prohibited by law from
inquiring about their immigration status.
with that, is there a way for federal immigration authorities
to know whether someone that may be on their radar has been
arrested or is being released from a police station?
I would imagine there's a way for them to, to to know when I
say that, you know, when a person is arrested, they get
booked and then it goes into the correction system.
I don't know what kind of visibility they have, but I do
know, for example, when you get arrested, you know, if you're
held, you go from a dock custody to the us marshals, which is
obviously a federal agency. So there is information that in
those systems you get on the lockup list inside superior
court, which is part of the federal government as well.
so there's definitely information that goes across
those areas there. Okay.
the obviously we've seen I know you've seen it as well, videos
of of officers. What one video of officers
dragging two youth off bikes. Other videos of taunting youth
at metro stations, which has raised questions among residents
about whether these approaches. And improve public safety,
particularly with respect to to young people.
some young people from black swan academy told me that they
need what they need most are trusted, adult mentors, and the
council passed the youth mentorship through a community
engagement act in december of 2024, and these concerns
underscore why we need to identify funding in this budget
to implement the solutions young people themselves have
requested. So I'll be looking for
opportunities in this budget to work with my colleagues to fund
this and other similar measures. But while we work to fund these
prevention strategies, residents also deserve clarity about how
youth are treated when multiple law enforcement agencies are
present, when federal officers are operating alongside mpd in
areas with large youth gatherings, are they required to
follow mpd protocols for interacting with youth,
including de-escalation standards?
so mpd policy does not apply to any federal agency.
they're guided by whatever their home agency policies are.
so what does that mean? That means if you work for
united states marshal service, you're bound by the policies of
the marshal service. They don't have to follow air,
air rules and procedures. Obviously, mpd officers that are
assigned to the metropolitan police department, they received
training as it relates to juveniles and how to interact
with them. And then, as you mentioned,
there was, you know, an incident that gained some attention that
that incident is being investigated as well.
if they are not required to follow the same protocols as
mpd, do you think that runs the risk of creating safety issues
and. Creating distrust with with our
law enforcement? I don't know if it runs the risk
of that. What I would say is most law
enforcement agencies that I'm aware of do have a requirement
to, to de-escalate, but what their specific training is or
what that looks like, I can't really comment on.
I do know, you know, what we've seen in a lot of these large
scale teen takeovers are, you know, a lot of lot of folks that
are out there. And it takes a lot of resources,
as you alluded to, to, to try to get those things under control.
for us, the main thing is to let everyone, the young people,
community members, folks that are out there be in a safe
environment to be out and enjoy the evening or the nighttime,
whatever it may be. But that way everyone can be
safe. The young people and the other
folks that are out there in those different areas, the the
majority of young people in these large groups are not doing
anything illegal, aside from whether or not there may be a
curfew in place. But when there are a couple that
that may do something, does that create a safety issue for the
city? It definitely does.
I mean, unfortunately, we saw the incident where the young
person, you know, juvenile discharged a firearm in the navy
yard about last month when there was one of these large
takeovers, another another young person, juvenile, was seen
running from the scene. A firearm was recovered.
so, you know, things like that. I mean, it puts the safety of
all the young people and not just young people, but other
adults and folks that are out there.
in those cases, as you mentioned there, there is usually when
there is issues, a small group of individuals that are there.
so that's why even, for example, with the emergency legislation
and now the mayor's order as it relates to curfew, there's so
many things that are built into, as it relates to the size of the
group to be in violation. The information that we need to
designate the area, as well as the warnings that we give,
because the goal is not to bring someone as an a curfew violator,
it's to try to break the groups up so they're not so large to
make it more manageable and to make sure it's safe for
everyone. Now, obviously, people are
shooting guns off or carrying firearms or assaulting each
other. Then the appropriate police
action needs to be taken. But we want to make sure that
everyone's safe in those areas. Right?
and so yeah, so even if there are a lot of young people, the
few people doing very wrong things is still wrong with the
federal officers. If the majority of them are
doing something right. This incident with the federal
officer grabbing two young girls off the bike, was that wrong?
I think that that my understanding is that was not a
federal officer. That's an mpd officer that's
being investigated. Okay.
so we agree that's not okay. Absolutely.
that's why we're investigating to see exactly what happened and
look into that. How many officers are being
deployed to curfew zones. So it depends.
it depends on what information we have.
so it depends on how many curfew zones we have.
and then if we don't have curfew zones, we still deploy officers
inside certain areas where we've seen issues at.
so what does that mean. There's certain areas, for
example, the navy yard, where we see pretty much every weekend
some some level of juvenile activity, either based on on
fliers that are posted online. A lot of these things go on
social media, go around. So kind of the areas that we've
seen have also kind of shifted sometimes to as we've deployed
resources in areas, there's other areas where we start to
see the teen takeovers happen. Example would be the shift we
saw over noma and lithia tanner park.
we had issues that moved over there.
so putting resources in those areas to try to mitigate that.
if we have a juvenile curfew zone or not, it has been
successful to help tamp down those things, but it does take a
lot of resources. And of course, we have to have
the ability to shift those resources because, you know,
since, you know, young people may see officers over here, they
may go to another location. So we're going to have to have
the ability to shift those folks to address those issues.
so. That the curfew zones have an
impact on police coverage in other parts of the city.
no, no. So we're staffing those with
overtime. So it has an effect on our
overtime usage is what it really does.
and then we have to shift resources to address that.
so for example, you know we're using overtime resources in the
navy yard to have increased staffing over there because of
what we're seeing inside that area.
with the uptick in visitation, more, more young people that are
there in those time frames. Okay.
the. There's one issue I want to make
sure I have time to, to get to. So let me go there now.
residents sometimes report to me that after a shooting or other
violent incident, police response ends quickly.
while communities continue to deal with trauma and disruption.
I recently spoke with the families of tio coates and milo
young. The two children killed near a
food truck during spring break. Their families and community
members said that they had received no outreach or support
after facing what is unimaginable loss after a
violent incident occurs. What role does mpd or partner
agencies play in coordinating with violence interruption
trauma services? Community and family support?
yes. So on that aspect, in those
cases, especially in homicide cases, we have a victim support
section within an era or homicide unit that does outreach
and connects those families. So I'll follow up and look and
see what that looks like there. Also, you know, in those areas,
we have put an increased presence over there, working
with the violence interrupters to try to get information.
you know, we continue to investigate those those deaths
intensely. And it's one of the highest
priorities that we have. So working with the community to
get information with that, but also the deployment of resources
in, in those areas is something that we work with other agencies
for, especially when we come to the juvenile area and pushing
that out to for awareness, not only to our partner agencies,
but to see what else they can do in those situations.
thank you. If we could work together on
that, and with my colleague councilmember felder, just, you
know, the impact on the other young people and the families
there is is tough to process. I know you and your team know
about that. So.
absolutely. Yes, sir.
thank you. Thank you very much.
thank you. Chairman, chairperson pinto.
absolutely. And thank you so much for
joining us. Good luck in your hearing.
and I think what that conversation lends itself to
another area of the budget that is concerning around the cut of
family services, out of the one's office.
and so if we're reducing another agency's ability to provide
those wraparound supports and grief counseling and funeral
expenses, which is now cut across all of our agencies, that
were supportive in that way. You know, a lot of people are
going to be relying on mpd to do even more and, you know, needs
to be we're working to resolve in the budget.
I do want to just clarify something about the conversation
you just had with councilmember white as it relates to the
juvenile curfew. Without this tool, can you speak
about what that would mean for the staffing strains and
overtime strains in order to respond to the large teen
takeovers? If you weren't able to say in
this specific area, we're going to use this as a preventative
tool to have an earlier curfew. Yes.
so more likely than not, what we'd have to do is we'd have to
deploy even more resources in the area, because then they
would come to the area. And now we have the ability, if
they're in those zones, to have them break into smaller groups,
which are more manageable, or they can go outside the
boundaries, it kind of thins out the crowd.
but without that, we'd have more people.
so just like when we have a large crowd anywhere, maybe
downtown or wherever, we need more resources and more officers
and more folks to be out there to ensure that they can monitor
the crowd. And if there are any issues or
if a fight breaks out, they can immediately intercede.
so it doesn't turn into a complete melee.
okay. So if we don't have the juvenile
curfew in place, we can expect more strain on officer staffing
and overtime. That's correct.
okay. Thank you.
okay, so just to make sure I have these these numbers again
for fy 2027, we're anticipating that we can bring on 216 new
recruits based on our current requirements.
as far as the spos and with the college requirement.
yes. Okay.
and how about new cadets? So with that, we we think
there'll be about 20 cadet conversions into that.
the cadet numbers, the cadet numbers really depends on how
many roll over. As I mentioned in my testimony,
as we talked about the the provision about the cadets, we
hover in that area about 120 and 1 to 130 with the cadet numbers,
we're authorized up to 150. That's why we're interested in
in the expansion of it to the immediate area around the city,
to see if we can fill those additional 20 spots with other
folks. If we do not get to that level
with folks from the city itself. But the reason why it's kind of
nuanced is you have some cadets that are in high school in their
last year, and they roll out. You have some that are that are
older, that have, you know, joined the program, but they
don't have the credits. And then you have some that are
kind of in that mid range where they hit 21, they'll be able to
come and officer. So depending on where they're at
as it relates to age and college credits, that's where it kind of
because some of them could have started inside high school and
be done earlier and could theoretically be just about
there to be 21 in some cases. You have folks that are over.
21. So they're not waiting to get to
21. They're just waiting to get the
appropriate college credits. So it comes back to kind of back
to the conversation about the college credits, but it's been a
very steady pipeline. Well, not many roads lead to
college credits, but it has been one of our best pipelines.
the cadet program has been as far as getting young people
inside the door, you know, giving them familiarity not only
with the agency, but how things work, but letting them get their
education, enrolling in. So it has been a very good
pipeline for us. So those 20 recruits expected
are part of the 217. Yes.
216 yes. So right now, what we we
estimate is 148 new recruits. 20 cadet conversions, and
potentially 48 senior officers is there.
that's our estimate. Of course, things could change
based on the bsa and what that would look like.
okay. And that does not include what
hopefully will be an increase if drop is finally passed.
that's correct. We wanted to make our estimate
as realistic as possible. Okay.
all right. So back to overtime.
so last year there was $39 million budgeted for overtime in
fy 26, the current year. But the actual amount spent on
overtime in fy 25 was 95 million.
in the proposed fy 27 budget, the mayor is allocated 81
million to overtime. But you spoke about earlier that
this year is going to be even more reliant on overtime because
of all of these federal events. And so while I appreciate this
budget moves towards more accurate reflection, is it an
accurate reflection? I do believe it's an accurate
reflection. But as you mentioned, there's a
lot of variables that are in there, including we talk about
the america 250 in a different funding sources.
so I'll let dan talk a little bit about kind of what that
breakdown looks like and kind of where we think that we will be
at with that. That would be great.
and as you do that, can you also talk about where the epsf
funding went to and how that changed our own local budget
allocations? With the increase in federal
funding, reimbursement? Sure.
so can you clarify the fund that we usually get reimbursed from
the federal government? That was usually about 50
million, that we got $90 million this year?
correct. Much of that hopefully will go
to reimbursement of expenses to cover federal.
but I'm curious exactly how much mpd received from that bucket of
money and how that changed our local allocation of dollars that
we had anticipated, because we weren't sure we were going to
get that money. Yeah.
so our current forecast of what we think we'll need from e, p,
s, f and mpd, and particularly mpd overtime, uses the majority
across the district. I know fire uses some and I
believe corrections. It is it is getting close to 90.
so we are having conversations with sema and others in terms of
you know, they're the ones that manage it centrally with the cfo
as well in terms of what we can do about that and potentially
working with the mayor, because it's definitely america.
250 alone. The iran middle east ramp up of
of mpd resources is also going to epsf.
so there's other factors at play that haven't been there in the
past. So even though the 90 is a lot,
the vast majority of that is going to be mpd over time.
are there any other sources of money that the federal
government can just directly pay for some of these security
expenses that are due to federal government activity?
so in my ideal world, we'd have a whole bunch of new moas
because we have various task forces in place where we do have
existing moas, and we become a reimbursable special purpose
revenue. Obviously, that takes time and
more paperwork and agreement with these various federal
entities, and it doesn't seem to have been the case so far in
this current environment. But, you know, that would pave
the way because we've had for years dozens of federal task
forces and regional. And those work very well.
there's there's agreements in place, there's reimbursable
rates in place, and a special purpose revenue.
so it doesn't even get to epsf or the need for another federal
payment. I do know anecdotally, there are
conversations from the cfo side and the mayor's side, I believe
directly with congress to to talk about a potential
additional federal payment. Federal payment would be great
because there's not usually the same requirements as a grant
with strings attached, if you will, because it's money we can
utilize and have more flexibility.
but I'm not aware of anything in writing at this point.
so is the only way the federal government ever really helpful
in this regard is through this epsf fund that we then apply for
reimbursement to? That's right.
well, epsf is is is easy in, in a in a sense, because it is it
is it is reimbursable. But there are there are it's
broader and its application and how we can use it.
it's just this year is, is with america.
250 and some of these other events.
it's, it's far beyond what we would normally need in a, in a
fiscal year. Well, it feels like america is.
250 is a perfect example of something that is unique.
and that's not accounted for in our annual budgeting, that if
there was ever a time for the federal government to directly
pay for some of those security and personnel costs, it would be
the programing around. To me, it would be just like the
inaugurations. Every four years we get an
additional federal payment for the inauguration from.
from my standpoint, that would that would make sense.
similar size, similar scope. But imagine if the inauguration
was only once in every 250 years.
yeah, exactly. I mean, really.
okay. And so some of the inauguration
expenses I thought were part of the epsf reimbursement.
yes. Although the majority of it is,
is actually designated. It's similar, but it's actually
accounted for separately. It's a separate paper agency.
so sometimes I think the numbers may be shown together, but
they're actually separate. And how much was that that
separate fund received for the inauguration.
from that I'd have to I don't have it right in front of me.
okay. I'm just curious about what the
range would be. It's in the tens of millions.
yeah. Okay.
and are those conversations going on now around setting up a
similar funding structure for americas 250 as far as I'm
aware, right now, we're just looking at it in terms of epsf.
so I think I think I do believe there's conversations at higher
levels of the cfo and the mayor in terms of trying to work with
congress on getting an additional federal payment.
I don't we haven't there's no structure or anything that's
been set up to accommodate that. Okay.
well, chief, you serve on the safe and beautiful task force,
right? Yeah, I do.
so is this something that you can ask them for?
yeah, we can definitely bring up the conversation about it just
to kind of give a little context, though, about task
force and things like that. The task force don't usually pay
for all the officers. They usually pay for task force
expenses that are associated with that.
so think about officers, for example, that we have to serve
on the joint terrorism task force.
the fbi doesn't pay for their salaries.
they pay for overtime. That's associated with with
their duties with the fbi. They may provide a vehicle, but
they don't pay their salary. So it's just want to provide
clarity. It's not like they would pay for
everything. Yes.
understood. But I think if the
recommendation came from the task force to ensure that
expenses around america's two 50th didn't come out of dc local
overtime budget, but was separately allocated, you know,
it could save the america 250 isn't.
although the task force has some visibility.
it's not like ran by the task force itself.
but we definitely. Point taken.
okay. I want to recognize we've been
joined by my ward 7 colleague, council member wendell felder.
I'll turn to you now for a ten minute round.
thank you, chairperson pinto chief is always good to see you,
sir, as well as members of your senior leadership.
just diving right in, chief, as you are aware, agencies across
the district have seen a significant decrease in their
budgets. However, mpd has seen a
significant increase in your budget.
could you speak to how the increase in funds is helping to
keep families across the district safe?
sure. So as we talked about the a lot
of the increase that we see in funds is really partially to
make up for the the increase overtime we actually have been
using to make sure we can keep the city safe.
and also the increased that came from the collective bargaining
agreement that went into place last year that's now being put
into this year's budget, that the I believe it's a 13%
increase from fy 24 through fy 26.
so some of that is really pushing that up.
the number up because of the collective bargaining agreement
with that, with this budget allows us to do is to deploy
officers across the city, not only for special events and
others. You know, a lot of talk about
america 250 and that kind of stuff.
but I mean, our number one priority is to keep crime down
across the city and be across the communities and make sure we
have the resources that we need across the city for that.
and may it be addressing concerns with with young people
inside certain areas or violent crime that's starting to tick up
over in the sixth and seventh district.
we have to make sure that we have the appropriate resources.
the officers that are out there, you know, when we talk about our
budget, I mentioned it earlier, kind of my introductory
testimony. There's such a small percentage
of it that is not personnel costs.
the people that actually do the work and the things that we have
to have out there. That's what drives, you know,
99% of our budget is that that cost, that salary, the benefits
the officers we have, and we need those officers to be out in
those areas across the city as we continue to face that, the
short staffing that we have, as I mentioned, it's the lowest
we've had in over 50 years. We have to supplement that with
overtime. That's that's the only way we
can do that to make sure we have the resources that we need.
and of course, it does drive up the cost with that.
and so you see that within your proposed budget, a little over
42 million is an increase in overtime.
how many officers could you get with that in the event that that
money would go to officers, new officers rather?
yeah. So I'll let dan or patricia kind
of give you the number. But what I'd say before we get
there is, you know, with the ability to get back to our
budget support act, some of those provisions in there,
providing the ability to get new people in the door, open up that
new pool of applicants is really important because that would
allow us to do just that, right? Get new officers in the force
that make a lower salary to take up those spots.
and also we talk about, you know, work life balance and the
well-being of our members, bring down some of the hours that they
have to spend, you know, working these details that we have.
and also the other provision as we talk about the senior police
officers, the ability to potentially bring in folks that
have experience, that have been deployed across the city, that
are currently prohibited based on that legislation, to let them
come back at a lower salary, also provides us the ability to
to get more people out there. And then dan can kind of give
you a number on the number itself.
sure. Yeah.
theoretically, that would hire about 500 officers.
you know, obviously you wouldn't see the savings in overtime in
year one because they'd have to go through the academy.
I will say overtime budget, though, is a reflection of what
they are actually spending. And even then it's going to be
tough to hit that mark. And as well as chief carol
mentioned earlier, actually getting those officers in the
door is the harder part. We have ftes.
we're sitting currently on about 18% vacancy savings rate.
so, you know, a healthy vacancy savings for an agency, the size
is more like 5%. So I don't think it's an issue
of getting authority from our officers.
I think it's really more an issue of getting them in the
door, because we certainly have the budget for it.
from a financial perspective, it makes much more sense to hire an
officer at $75,000 a year than pay an officer, an experienced
officer at $85 an hour on overtime.
it's, you know, they're all getting time and a half on
overtime. Thank you for that.
now, chief, I know that allowing officers to take advantage of
overtime is a band aid. It's not the overall solution.
could you speak to what's the long term strategy to get more
officers through the door? And how does your budget reflect
that? I know you mentioned some of the
language in the bsa, but could you speak a little?
could you go into greater detail on what the long term strategy
consists of? Sure.
so so what the bsa does the provision in there as far as
allowing us to hire officers with college credit when they
come in the door, provide them with those credits through a
cooperative agreement that we will establish with frederick
community college. So they would get credits for
going through the academy. And then before they leave the
academy, they would stay additional month or so to pick
up the additional 19 credits. So when they graduate fully,
they would have those 60 college credits.
so this would allow us to open up an applicant pool that we
currently can't tap right now in this region.
us in arlington county are the only agencies that require the
college credit to come in the door.
I believe in july, arlington county's starting salary is
going to $90,000. So a big difference from our
starting salary of just over $75,000.
so for us, this provision of the bsa would open up a new
applicant pool. You know, we tried last year
when we got the the entrance number of credits down to 40,
but we have not seen anyone who's in that, that range where
they need to make up just those 20 credits to get to 60.
so this new provision, if we can get this passed, would open up a
whole new applicant pool that would really help to get people
in the door. The other portion of the
provision I mentioned before is the spo portion of it.
being able to take some of those folks that may have had serious
misconduct 23 years ago, but have been a stellar employee
since then. Right now, the legislation
doesn't allow them to, to, quote unquote, rehire them or to bring
them back as a senior police officer because of that
prohibition, the amended language in the bsa would allow
for folks that have not had any serious misconduct in the past
five years of ten days or more. To be considered doesn't mean we
have to hire them, but it would allow us to consider to bring
them back. So we kind of go back to not
only the new hire piece, which is very important, but also
retaining people to stop the the number of folks that we're
seeing leave each year. We have to look at something
different. There's no way we're going to be
able to compete with the hiring bonuses.
right now, park police is offering a $70,000 hiring bonus.
now the secret service is offering a $75,000 hiring bonus.
we were one of the first agencies to offering a higher
bonus. We still provide that of
$25,000, but we're never going to be able to continue to go up
and up. So we have to look at different
strategies to really address and open up that applicant pool to
get folks in here. So if you make me feel like I'm
in the wrong occupation now, I mentioned earlier that there was
an overall increase in your budget.
now, to be honest, I was a little disappointed to see that
the data analytics and research there was a reduction by $1.4
million. And chief, could you speak to
why is data and analytic capacity being reduced at a time
when data driven policies is critical?
sure. A great question.
I'm gonna let dan answer that because some of this is just
technical shifting in the budget.
yeah. Thanks, counselor.
the majority of that, actually all of that is a 12 ftes that
were shifted out to special operations division and the
crime analysts and investigative analysts.
so I would say it was more of a shifting around program.
it's a realignment from one bureau to another.
yeah. Now, chief, I was happy to see
investments in capital improvements.
could you speak to how those funds will help improve overall
conditions and facilities across ward 7, which is comprised of
the first district, the fifth district and the sixth district?
yes. So so one of the biggest ones
that we have is actually on the capital project side isn't
inside those words, but it's actually inside our 70
headquarters renovation. This is something that we've
been working on for, for many years.
and at this point, it looks like we'll actually begin
construction inside fiscal year 27.
so the design function, all that has been worked through by the
end of this fiscal year, the design and permitting will be
fully completed. The goal is to start
construction in fiscal year 27, and then it should be completed
in fiscal year 28. The seventh district is probably
the. The facility we have is in the
worst condition that we have at this time.
so that's a big impact inside of our seventh district to bring
that up. Also, areas that we've been
working on is the renovations of er detention centers inside of
our district, cell blocks to make sure to bring them up.
so we renovated a couple of them, currently 40 and five are
being renovated, 40 is almost complete.
five d is in progress. So by the end of fiscal year 26,
they should both be completed. Following that, we have to then
renovate the second district detention area and the third
district detention area. Inside some of our renovation
project. There's issues that we have.
many of our facilities have more minor issues.
I'd say plumbing issues, things like that.
so working with the team on small projects to.
sorry for interrupting you, chief.
sure. I'm trying to get two questions
in really quickly. The the first question, even
though you saw an increase in your budget, does this budget
adequately keep residents safe from your opinion?
yes, it does it. Yes it does.
and if you if we're talking about public safety from an
overall public safety ecosystem, when you look at programs like
pathways, which is supposed to be the front line defense with
deescalating neighborhood feuds, unfortunately, that program has
seen a a decrease in their budget.
my question, chief, are you under the impression that maybe
there's an opportunity to reprogram any additional funds
that you may have to support other agencies that overall
contribute to the work that your agency is doing?
yeah. What I'd say is those agencies
do a lot of good work, but the challenge is basically what we
have right now with what appears to be an increase is really just
right sizing of the overtime. And it's actually last year, the
collective bargaining agreement was was passed.
so 13% increase in salaries is really where you see a majority
of that come to. It's not extra money that we
have. Appreciate that.
thank you chief. Yes, sir.
thank you. Council member felder.
we've also been joined by our ward one colleague, council
member brian nadeau, and I'll turn to you now for a ten minute
round. Thank you very much, madam
chair. Hi, chief.
good afternoon ma'am. Chief, in fy 26, mpd spent $41.6
million on overtime. Is that right?
yeah. I'm.
dan's going to yeah. In terms of fy in fy 26 in
current year. Yes.
and through q2 through the end of march.
that's correct. Okay.
okay. And the mayor's fy 27 proposed
budget, the percentage of overtime pay increased by about
56.7 million. Is that right?
it was that's correct. It was.
it's over the fy 25 amount. There was a $15 million one time
that was eliminated. So the net increase was closer
to 42. It got it just the way it's
reflected. Yes it's correct, but I just
wanted to clarify that. That makes sense.
but it is like 100% increase essentially.
correct. Okay.
so chief, you testified that the agency is using overtime funds
to staff and enforce the curfew. Is that right to deploy
additional resources in the curfew areas and other areas
where we see in teen gatherings? That's correct.
and how much has been used? How much money has been used for
overtime staffing on curfew enforcement during fy 26?
yes. Miss campbell can can give you
an idea. We approximately have about a
thousand. Sorry, j.
thus far we've spent about. $113,000, but that was only as
of the march 2021 pay period ending.
okay, okay. Chief, you also testified that
overtime usage will increase if the permanent version of the
curfew isn't passed. Do I have that right?
yeah, I believe we'd have to deploy more officers
potentially. Why is that?
because we don't have the ability to break them into
smaller groups or have them go outside the zone areas.
and we need to probably deploy more resources to monitor them
while the large groups are there.
so it's just kind of like we would do for any, any large
crowd right now, when we have the zones, we have the ability
to if they don't go into smaller groups to, you know, give them
warnings to break them into groups that are less than nine
or they, of course, they can go outside the boundary areas,
which kind of spreads out those groups.
but if you have more compact crowding, then you'd need more
members to monitor that just to make sure there aren't issues.
got it. Okay, so just to to clarify the
fiscal impact statement for the permanent bill states that mpd
funds are sufficient with current resources to implement
the bill. That's correct.
yes. That's correct.
and the resources to implement the bill is that also overtime?
yes, I'd say so. The budget includes the overtime
that we need. We need the overtime to be able
to to do what we need to do as the agency.
okay. Okay.
just some more questions about curfew enforcement.
when minors are found to be in violation of the curfew, do
officers arrest or detain the minor?
so if you're in violation of the curfew, it.
when I say it, it depends. Right.
so what curfew are we talking about?
we're talking about the citywide curfew that begins at 11 or 12.
that one, once the citywide curfew is in effect, if you're
in violation, there are multiple exceptions.
for example, if you're out in front of your house or if you're
with a parent, or if you're on a direction from aaron, from a
parent without stopping. So there are there are many
exceptions. So what would happen initially
if you're in the citywide curfew area, the officer would have to
stop, talk to the individual, determine are they one of the
exceptions to the regulations or not?
let's just say, for example, they're not an exception to the
regulation. The officer can either take the
young person home or if they couldn't take them home, they
could take them to a drs where they would stay and their parent
would come pick them up. When we talk about the juvenile
curfew zones, the ones that are designated areas, usually
between 8 and 11, and those cases it's a little bit
different. So those are defined areas where
we put signs up at once. That time comes if they're in
violation and to be in violation, you have to have nine
or more folks that are in violation that are in the group.
with that, you have to give two warnings.
if it's not an emergency situation, you know, letting
them know that they're in violation of the curfew and they
can break into smaller groups. So then they come in compliance
with that. Or they could also go outside
the areas of the boundary. If it's an excellent
circumstance, think like a fight or something, you could give one
warning. And then if they don't comply,
they will be taken as a curfew violator.
so the same thing they would go to, you know, either go home to
their parents or go to where their parent would come pick
them up for curfew violation. Folks would only be arrested if
they committed a criminal offense.
you know, like they rob somebody had a firearm or something like
that. Okay.
so if they haven't committed a criminal offense, they're and
they haven't been arrested, should I assume that they are
not handcuffed? They're curfew violators so they
could be handcuffed? It depends on the situation.
okay. Are they read their miranda
rights when that occurs? No.
but people don't get read their miranda rights like on tv.
you see people get put in handcuffs and get read miranda
rights. You're only mirandized.
we're going to ask custodial interrogation.
we're going to ask you questions about the crime that you
committed, curfew violators aren't aren't buying, aren't
criminals like that. So even in most cases, when you
are arrested, no one reads your miranda rights on the scene that
that happens. If a detective is going to
interview you, then you'd be mirandized.
okay. Thank you.
that's clear. Are they?
taken in the back of a police car when this occurs?
if they're being removed from the area.
so we have a curfew and truancy wagons.
so that's what's usually used. And you've probably seen them
out there. They're kind of like passenger
wagons. And it says curfew slash truancy
enforcement on the side of it. And that's what they're used to
transport them in. For those who are transported to
is are they processed there? No, they're not arrested.
they're they're put inside beds until their parents come to get
them. Like they're given a place to
stay. So that way officers don't don't
have to stay with them. They can go back out on the
street. That way they have the
appropriate supervision while their parents are coming to get
them. So they're staying on the
non-secure side. The specifics of the actual
facility, I don't know. I can't speak to that.
okay. And what happens to the youth
whose parents don't come to pick them up from is, I mean,
potentially if no parent ever came to pick them up, they would
be turned over to child and family services.
in that case, I don't know if that's ever happened or not
though. Okay.
does mpd have any data collected on the following?
I guess you can just say yes or no.
number of arrests made during in these curfew zones?
yes we do. How about the number of kids
driven home by police officers? We don't have that per se.
I think we have we have the number of curfew violators
though. So that would mean they were
either driven home or taken to curfew center.
we have that. Okay.
and then the number of kids held on detention after an arrest for
curfew violation. I'm not quite sure what that
means. An arrest?
how about an arrest in a curfew zone?
yes. We have.
yes, we have arrest and curfew zones.
yes, ma'am. Okay.
and then would you have the number of kids identified as
unhoused? We don't generally ask about
their housing status unless they were to volunteer that we don't,
you know, we'd ask their address, their parents phone
number, that kind of stuff. So I don't think we'd have that
on hand. Do you know if you've ever
returned children to a shelter? I do not know.
that's something we have the the curfew paperwork, so that's
probably something we could probably find out.
but I don't know. Okay.
okay. Thank you.
you were just talking about with councilmember felder, the cadet
program and expanding the eligibility in the bsa.
I think that's great. In 2023 and 2025, I introduced
legislation that would increase cadet pay from 35 k to 60 k,
because the cost of living is so high in dc and pay is so low.
and my bill also expanded eligibility up to age 33 from
the current age of 24, with the goal of increasing the number of
applicants eligible. What would you think about
including some of that in the bsa as well?
I don't necessarily think I'm against it.
what I would say is, I think, for example, raising the age to
33, I think we would probably do a much better service to those
folks to remove the entry requirement for the college
credit and allow them to gain that that college credit,
because it really puts them on a track much faster and lets them
actually become a police officer faster and make higher salaries.
so I think that that would be probably a better solution
overall than raising the age to let folks to come into the
program because, you know, you get 33, it's harder the ability
to potentially be done and have the 60 credits in the
abbreviated time, I think would be probably overall beneficial
to everybody. Okay.
well, thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony.
yes, ma'am. Thank you.
thank you, madam chair. Thank you, councilmember nadeau.
and chief, I just want to reclarify again that.
but for the curfew, it is your position that more money would
be spent on overtime. That's correct.
and again, we're assuming that they continue with these these
teen takeovers to continue. Yes.
we'd have to deploy more officers to monitor the large
crowds, however long they're there.
okay. I just don't want that to be.
misunderstood by anyone that yes, of course, it requires a
deployment of officers, but fewer than would be required if
you couldn't use this tool. Yes, ma'am.
okay. I also want to clarify a
conversation you just had with councilor bernardo about
handcuffs. It was my understanding that if
a young person was in a curfew zone and that was their only
violation, they would not be handcuffed.
again. It depends, for example, if the
young person, depending on how they're going to say how they're
acting, if they turn violent or something like that, there is
the potential they could be handcuffed.
so it depends on the situation. But in general, violation of a
zone. Yeah.
just yeah. Well, if they're just in
violation of the zone, we would try to gain compliance.
so the goal would be not even to bring them into curfew at all.
we try to to have them leave the zone or break into smaller
groups. But if we had to bring them in
as a curfew violator, okay. And if you had to bring them in,
would they? They would not be handcuffed.
yeah. The goal would be not to
handcuff them unless something precipitated that.
we had to like a use of violence or assaulting an officer.
yeah. And then then potentially it
would change from a curfew violation to an arrest.
okay. But that's a different kind of
category, right? So if someone, if a young person
is just in a zone violating a curfew zone, they're not
handcuffed for that violation in and of itself in general.
no. I don't want to give you
absolutes, right? Because there's always one off
situation that could could happen, right?
because for example, you may stop a person and you may place
my handcuffs because you're not, you're still investigating,
right? So you see that lots of times in
regular investigations, for example, we're in the area
canvasing for a robbery suspect. We see an individual who meets
that lookout. They could be a young person.
they could be an old person. It doesn't really matter.
we may handcuff and detain them. While we're investigating, we
determine, okay, a crime didn't didn't happen.
so that's why I don't want to give you absolutes to say that
under no circumstance ever depends on if they stop the
young person, because there's a potential of a robbery in the
area, they may stop them, they may handcuff them, they may
determine they weren't involved in a robbery, but then they may
determine they were curfew violator.
so that would then have been a curfew violator in handcuffs.
so it depends. Right.
but all the examples that you're using are for for other crimes
potentially. Yes.
solely if you're solely a curfew violator.
in most cases, yes. You will not be handcuffed.
okay. But again, all of the examples
that you've used are not about sole curfew violators, right?
well, that's because you may not know if they're curfew violator
first. You understand?
I'm saying like you may not know if they were curfew violent when
you initially stopped them or not, because the same thing, if
you stop somebody and it turns out they're not a young person,
they wouldn't even be a curfew violator.
so in general, if you're just a curfew violator, no, you will
not be handcuffed. Okay, okay.
all right. So back to overtime.
so the 14% reduction that you found in overtime efficiencies,
what were those efficiencies? So I wouldn't I wouldn't
necessarily categorize them as efficiencies.
it's just more so looking at the programs that we have in place
and see, are there places where we could reduce the numbers of
officers that were working those, or were there some areas
where we had operational plans where we could shift resources
at, especially as we saw crime go down, you know, during the
winter months or other times where we could have less
officers working some of our initiatives with in mind being
that if things change or as we get into the summertime, we will
probably have to increase the number of folks that are working
those initiatives. Things like our robbery
suppression initiative and our operation atlas.
what was that last word you said?
operation atlas? It's one of our initiatives we
do where we deploy additional resources inside areas.
for example, maybe the area has seen an uptick in violent crime.
we deploy additional officers in that area to do increased
traffic enforcement, provide increased visibility.
so it's one of the initiatives that we do.
okay. And so are there opportunities
for other efficiencies to be found with overtime?
I mean, even some of the examples you talked about with
races that might happen with work on the with hcm, on the
vehicular terrorism task force, are there other opportunities to
use infrastructure that could reduce the reliance on personnel
for some of these events? Potentially?
there are. And you mentioned the terrorism
task force is looking at that. The one challenge I would say
with that is sometimes, folks, you still have to have police
officers to monitor certain areas and certain things.
so we don't build out operational plans, for example,
for, for five keys or things like that, to, to pad an extra
officers. That's not the goal.
we have enough things that we have to do.
we really try to keep it as thin as possible as relates to
traffic postings and crowd control.
so it's an evaluation of what we know as it relates to potential
intelligence as it may be. Also, you know, traffic postings
like the route that's in there, and then crowd control based on
the number of individuals that are in there.
so we're always looking at these things.
we're always changing our operational plans.
if you look at how we did nats park 20 years ago or when it
first opened versus how we do it now, a lot of things have
changed in that area as far as not only the the layout of the
land with some of our bike lanes and things like that, but other
commercial establishments. So as things change, we have to
also adapt their operational strategies.
okay. And so are you looking at
additional strategies that could be changed for.
we always are. Yeah.
so for example, you know, some of the things we do a couple
years ago, I think was last year, the year before we bought
some of our different types of barriers that we can use to
cover down certain alleys and things like that, because we
have less officers. So we're trying to look at
different ways to do things. You know, that lighten that
load. So that's why I'll be talking
about technology. We talk about cameras, things
like that. These are different technologies
and things that we can do to streamline what we do.
also, of course, keeping a close eye on the overtime is very
important. Okay.
and so how much has the department spent in local
dollars on overtime to date in fy 26?
yeah, yeah. It's it's actually 75 million.
so 75.5. I know actually I misspoke when
councilmember nadeau asked she her number, coincidentally
referenced the current deficit. So it's and it's quite high
right now, in large part because there was a large back pay in
november pursuant to the cba agreement.
so about that amount is about $16.7 million.
we expect to we expect to be able to shift that off.
but even so, it's the burn rate is is already over budget, even
if you adjust for that and other things, we expect to adjust.
epsf. So at the end of q2, all of
those adjustments taking place. We're still, I think, a couple
million in the red right now. And our in our forecast is
showing the same that we're going to end probably where we
ended last year, which is around $92 million in overtime
spending. The only reason we're able to
absorb that is through through vacancy savings.
so there's 18 million for overtime included in the
supplemental budget. Will that be sufficient?
it will it will close the gap. Our q1 frp showed about a $50
million gap. So that'll bring us closer to
the $3,231 million range of, you know, current with our current
assumptions in place. Yeah.
it helps. Okay.
so it won't be we'll still be in a $30 million deficit, correct?
okay. So if that happens and your
projections are correct, and we're still in a $30 million
deficit, what happens? We have to work with the with
the mayor on finding additional funding.
I know we did quite a bit of that last year as well, with
multiple reprograming. And did those reprograming come
from within mpd vacancy savings or other.
it was both. So we absorbed some through
vacancy savings. We had some savings at the very
end of the year. And then we, we, the majority of
it though, came through either supplemental funding or other
agencies. So.
and so it's kind of a mix of everything.
okay. I guess just kind of just goes
back to what we were talking about earlier, that it feels
like we're taking some steps to more accurately reflect over
time, but it's still not accurate.
I mean, it's still a forecast, right?
I mean, we're working on vacancy savings.
but again, when we talk about the pay rate is higher this year
than last year. So even shaving off hours will
not translate into a cheaper cost.
so I don't want to lose sight of that person.
potentially. Totally.
but but my point is not moving away from the efficiency point.
just assuming that you need all the overtime that you need.
we need to know what that number is.
and it sounds like this budget does not reflect that reality.
I think it's it's close on the overall level.
what I will say is, is in the, in the out, I guess you're
talking about fy 26. Fy 26 is tough.
we have we have to we're going to have to work internally and
with potentially other agencies in the mayor to look for
additional funding. Okay.
but fy 27, fy 27, there's potential for additional hiring.
and we'd be happy to shift overtime over to to salaries and
pay. Granted, a lot of that won't be
until q4 if the recruits come out, but that that's the goal is
to is, you know, at the end of the day, salaries and fringe is,
you know, cheaper and better than overtime.
how many new recruits were funded in the fy 26 budget?
well, I think funded versus actually hired.
funded was, was again, much higher.
I think the initial plan called for something like, I think 250
if I'm if I'm not mistaken, the additional hires were actually
hires were only 185. The hires to date in.
oh, sorry. Our project.
I'm sorry. That's our projected for for I
was thinking you said were you saying 25 or 26?
26, 26. Our projected is 185.
our hires to date. For fy 26, our recruit hires to
date is 61. Okay.
and we're over halfway through the year.
yes, ma'am. And we funded 185 or we funded
250. I'll have to get back to you the
exact number that we funded. I just remember I, I know it was
higher than what we've actually been able to obtain because our,
we, we, we budgeted for. 26 I think with the hiring
assumption of something like. 20 a class, I want to say, and
the actuals are coming in at like 13 or 14, a class.
okay. So we have the same tuition
assistance, same bonuses, I guess a 13% increase in pay.
we talked about the, the credit changes, but did the, or the
credit changes going to account for that big of a delta and what
we can reasonably expect to hire for next year?
I don't think there's any silver bullet.
I mean, if there was some some magical solution, we would have
done it a long time ago. I think maintaining what we have
right now, opening up the aperture for the recruits as far
as the college credits and the ability to keep sboe is also the
other lens with that. Also, by pumping up the cadet
numbers gives us a little more additional that are in there.
you know, we really looked at what else can we do?
and, you know, that's pretty much everything.
you know, we talk about our retention bonuses that we have
as far as the for the port portion, for education, for
those folks that are between the, the three and eight years
or close to retirement. So we have a lot of things that
are in there incentive wise, not only for new people, but also
some things to keep folks that have been here a while.
but also, you mentioned the increase in pay that they they
did get last time. So there's, there's a lot of
different things in there. But, but really none of those
other things open up a new applicant pool, right?
the only thing that really does that is the not having to have
the credits when you come in the door and getting them while
you're in the academy, that's what really will open up a new,
you know, area, exactly what that looks like.
I think we'll have to see because a lot of these other
agencies we talk about, they too, also don't require that
already. I mentioned only us in arlington
who's paying $90,000 have that right now.
so just a level set. Okay.
and what else are you all doing around quality of life in the
job and supporting our officers to continue supporting
retention? Yes.
we have our organizational culture and wellness bureau has
been working on a lot of different things and programing
to try to to help, you know, policing is a very challenging
job. So there's a lot of different
pulls, not only on the officer but their families.
so working on mentoring programs within the agency, one of the
things they were able to roll out this year is the wellness
rooms across the districts for the officers.
so they can go in there, decompress, you know, do
different activities. They want yoga and things like
that to try to work, you know, through that.
the other thing is having some programing for the officers.
different districts have done different things to bring in not
only to show appreciation, but to allow them to, again, get the
expectations of what they need. And listening to the members,
you know, what would be beneficial to them?
I mean, wellness is a really big, big issue, especially as we
talk about the increase in overtime that we have and what
we can do to try to help officers with that, because it
is a really big pull not only on them, but also on their
families. And how much does this budget
invest in wellness? I don't think we have that right
in front of us. We can follow up with you,
though, and let you know. Thank you.
yes, ma'am. Okay.
so as you know, something I've been worried about for a while
is the need to improve our district substations and
headquarters. And so I'm excited about the
seventh district headquarters renovation.
the capital budget shows that there's $20 million in fy 27,
but only 1. Million in 28. Are you anticipating that
basically all of the renovations will take place through the
course of 27? Miss campbell will talk about
that. Okay.
yes, ma'am. We're actually working with the
with dgs on this project. So a majority of it is going to
happen after the groundbreaking in quarter one of fy 27.
they're hoping to finish the renovation by the end of fy 27.
and then all of the other little things, I believe it's through.
paygo is going to happen in fy 28.
okay. And so that would be a pretty
fast renovation for our standards of something of this
size through dgs, wouldn't it. Yeah that's correct.
and we're I'm sure that we will evaluate throughout the fiscal
year. And then potentially, if there's
any adjustments that need to be made, can propose that in fy 28.
okay. The capital budget has $3.8
million towards building renovations and construction in
27, but no further money in the entire rest of the cip that I
see. You know, I think we have pretty
great deeds for renovations at virtually all of our
headquarters. How, I guess, a, how would you
prioritize the 3.8 million that's there?
and how are you thinking about as we talk about morale and
retention and supporting our officers, how can we improve the
daily circumstances of where they're sitting if so many if
there are still so many challenges around heating and ac
and leaks and the deep need to have new buildings?
sure. So I'll let dan talk a little
bit about the, the kind of the money portion of it.
but with us, we have a liaison that works daily with dgs to
prioritize what needs to be, what the issues are across the
entire portfolio of facilities. For us, kind of the priority or
the, the immediate officer areas.
so the restrooms, the roll call rooms, excuse me, the report
writing rooms. So meeting with them and working
on those areas that have been identified to get the most
impact as a priority. When we start looking at that,
I'll let dan talk a little bit about how the funding is.
yes, I think it's common for the small caps capital project to be
funded one year at a time. It's been my experience.
at least I've seen that at fire as well.
maybe it's not ideal, but I do usually see that get trued up
because that is, as you said, a very important.
that's personally my favorite one because it's the one that
keeps everything else going. You know, everybody loves the
new stations and things, but the small caps for me is, is
critically important. So on the cfo side, we are
always making that point. I will say they are currently
sitting on a, a almost a $6 million balance.
so they are they do have money that will carry forward as they
as they expend this year's allotment as well.
so it's not just that that 3.8, it's anything that's carried
forward that they can then use as well.
okay. And where would you prioritize
first? The areas I spoke of, right, the
bathrooms, the roll call rooms, the places that officers spend
most of their times. Those are the areas I mean,
you'd prioritize kind of all of that for all of the district,
starting with the district stations.
to me, most of our members are in the district stations.
that's where, you know, I'd say a majority, you know, for for
one, it's a not a new building, but it's a newer facility that
people are in. So I would say it's in better
condition. But a majority of our officers
sit across the districts, and that's where we need to have
those those areas. And again, it's the immediate
touchpoints of the officers, the roll call room, the report
writing room, the bathrooms, things of that nature.
that's the area that I want to focus on.
okay. And so when you mentioned that
there might be more money available for small cap, what do
you anticipate will actually be the realistic number?
I was just reflecting that because it's capital and carries
forward, it doesn't lapse like operating.
that was just my point that I'm just checking the current
balance to say, okay, if they theoretically didn't touch it,
but but that could theoretically be used by year end.
but this money hasn't been committed yet on a poa.
so it does tell me there's some likelihood that some of that
balance will carry forward. I'm sure there's plans for that
money. So I'm not advocating to get
swept either, but I did. I didn't want it to look like
the new allotment was the only money available to them.
got it. Okay.
thank you. Let me ask you about the new
heliport facility that this capital budget allocates $2
million towards building the budget says that the existing
facility is currently in dire need of renovations.
so is this for clarity? A new facility entirely or
renovation dollars to the existing facility?
my understanding is renovation to the existing facility.
I don't know if it's a full take down or not, but there's a lot
of challenges at the heliport. It's a very old building and
also making sure that the helipad is completely level so
that over on south capitol street is where heliport sat.
but the facility is very old and it's in bad condition.
this is the south capitol location.
yes, the south capitol street helipad.
and is this our only helipad location for mpd?
it is the only mpd helipad location.
and of course, as most folks are aware, there's very few places
in the city you can actually land a helicopter.
it's the only helipad that we've had.
we've had this facility for many years, and any other agencies
use that facility? Yes.
other so no other agency store, store, their store, their
helicopters, their per se. But we do.
however, other helicopters do land there and get fuel from the
south capitol street helipad. It's a it's a vendor that that
runs the overall. The only other place that there
is a helipad is a park. Police have a helipad on the
other side of the river, and then military facilities really.
there was some conversation yesterday among my colleagues
about the opportunity to co-locate an nps facility with
mpd. Tell me what your response to
that suggestion is. So that's a that's an idea we
had we've had talked about for years the ability to potentially
do that. It's something that we've never
been able to bring to fruition. It's something that we started,
you know, when chief conte was here, maybe even chief newsham,
having those conversations about the ability.
the challenge is, is park police, they have more
helicopters than we have. And they also have much larger
helicopters. There's are capable for medevac.
so the ability for them and the spacing, there's not enough
space at their current facility to to