This Plan is the product of a comprehensive examination of current police services and forecasting of trends and issues facing the City and the Department over the next five years. Goals, policies and strategies have been established for each operational unit of the department. The intent of the Plan is to enable the City and the Police Department to deal strategically with future issues and to maintain high quality police services.
The first phase of the planning process was to examine current conditions and to develop findings. Generally, this examination revealed the Junction City Police Department consists of motivated and competent staff. The Department has established rules, policies and procedures in all the critical areas of law enforcement to provide competent direction to employees. Additionally, the department provides an adequate level of training to employees in order to maintain their job skills. There are areas in which improvement should occur and they are noted in the specific areas of the Plan.
The priority issues facing the City and the Department are issues related to: (1) maintaining the city jail or contracting for jail services and (2) maintaining dispatch or contracting for dispatch services. These are complex issues and were not easy decisions for the City Council to make. The final decision was to maintain the jail and dispatch services as City police department operations. Detailed discussion of the issues and recommendations are included as attachments #1 and #2, Appendix 2 (Findings –Existing Services). The issue papers were an attempt to provide as much relevant information as possible as the basis for decision-making.
The second phase of the planning process was to identify trends and issues facing the City and the Department over the next five years. Several trends and issues have been identified in the areas of geography, annexation, population growth, economy, community expectations and police department operations.
Finally, a comprehensive review of the Findings-Existing Service and the Trends and Issues Reports resulted in the determination of the goals, policies and strategies included in the Plan.
It is recognized the community needs to be involved in planning for police services. Every attempt has been made to involve as many citizens as possible in the short time we had to complete the Plan. More importantly, implementation of the Plan will continue to provide opportunity for citizen participation during the annual budget process and at other critical decision points.
The Plan does include a schedule for fiscal implementation over the five years. However, it recognizes the reality of fiscal limitations. Fiscal implementation will always be dependent upon city priorities and available resources. It is important to note there are no immediate crises that require attention but there are several issues that will need to be addressed over the next five years.