According to recent news stories, Madison Police Chief Noble Wray claims that the 3% budget cut asked for by the mayor would mean the loss of 50 full-time staff positions including 15 officers and a delay in opening the new East District Station.

The Wisconsin State Journal outlined the possible cuts shared by Wray at a Press Conference on Thursday:

Personnel salaries and related expenses make up about 89% of the police department's operating budget. The remaining 11% of the operating budget consists of minor objects and capital assets. Apparently, Chief Wray was either unable or unwilling to find any significant cuts within this other 11% of the budget.

Another interesting item in the 2005 budget is $1.6 million worth of overtime pay. When asked about the possibility of cutting overtime, one alderperson explained that this expense is hard to change because it is part of the negotiated union contracts. Chief Wray shares this sentiment:

Chief Wray also failed to give more specifics about the officer and civilian positions that could be eliminated. Are we likely to lose beat officers, detectives, public information officers, high level administrators or whom?

One must wonder if cutting crossing guards and police officers is really necessary or if Police Chief Noble Wray is simply a smart enough department head to know that presenting such a worst-case-scenario will garner public outrage.

Photo by dirk olbertz. Used with permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license.