What to know about the new proposals for changing Milwaukee's public safety system

Milwaukee is trying to rethink public safety.

It’s been a long process, and it’s going to take longer.

The Common Council and Fire and Police Commission recently took up a consultant’s report on Milwaukee police staffing, while a report from a city task force charged with finding alternative responses to some 911 calls was also recently released.

Officials say they want to do two things: Answer community demands that came amid global protests for racial justice after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.

And save money.

How exactly the city would accomplish those two goals remains to be seen.

“It's important to … have an open mind to this process and everything that is coming out right now, so that we can make the best-informed choices,” said Mayor Cavalier Johnson, who was council president at the time both efforts launched.

Here is what the studies found and what officials had to say about them.

What did the Milwaukee Police Department staffing study find?

San Francisco-based Matrix Consulting Group analyzed the Milwaukee Police Department’s staffing and response times.

Among its findings was that the department has too few patrol officers and longer call wait times on the city’s north and northwest sides. Matrix used a measure of “proactive time” to determine whether staffing was sufficient.

The “proactive time” measure is the percentage of on-duty staffing hours that are not spent responding to calls.

What is appropriate ‘proactive time’ and how does it relate to response time?

According to Matrix, police should spend 35% to 40% of their time on proactive policing, but the study found that Milwaukee patrol officers average just 26%, an indication of "insufficient staffing."

The report found:

• "Extreme inequities" in proactive time between police districts. At the high end, District Six, which covers Bay View to the city's western and southern borders, had 56% proactive time, and District One, which covers the east side and downtown had 48% proactive time. That contrasted with the lowest proactive times of between 10% and 13% in Districts Four, Five and Seven on Milwaukee's north and northwest sides, where some of the city's gun violence is concentrated.

• The same police districts with the lowest proactive time also had the areas where residents were most likely to wait more than four hours for a police response.

What did the staffing study recommend MPD do?

The study's recommendations included:

• Reallocating officers across districts.

• Using a new process to determine staffing based on patrol workload and temporarily redeploying certain specialized units to patrol duties.

• Freeing up police officers by using or expanding alternative responses to certain calls for service, whether taking a phone or online report, diverting to mental health or social services, or using a civilian response.

The report laid out a number of paths for the Police Department to reach a sufficient staffing level, by both adding sworn police officer and civilian positions and converting sworn officer positions into civilian ones.

For example, the study said the department could add 116 civilian positions and 11 sworn positions to achieve sufficient staffing. Or, it could add 133 sworn positions and 27 civilian.

How did MPD respond to the staffing study?

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman has long voiced general support for further civilianizing the department. Several years ago, the department began that process in its technical communications and forensics units, for example.

But Norman, along with other city officials, has also pointed out that civilianizing other areas of the department may be trickier due to collective bargaining agreements. Civilianizing is generally seen as a long term strategy in part for that reason.

Police officials have said they are holding regular meetings to discuss the study's recommendations. At a Fire and Police Commission meeting Thursday, Norman said officials feel they can capitalize on some but are "perplexed" on others. He did not elaborate further.

Regarding proactive policing time, Police Chief of Staff Heather Hough told council members it is important but the department also considers other factors.

"The appearance of this report is that there are more resources in affluent districts, and I will say that this is based on one factor and not the case in terms of how resources are allocated currently," she said.

She said police want proactive time to be equal across districts but that "more resources" are currently given to Districts Four, Five and Seven.

"That too is a balancing act because we don't want to over-police certain areas and under-police others,” she added.

Is ‘proactive time’ even a valid measure?

South side Ald. Scott Spiker questioned why “proactive time” should be used to guide staffing as opposed to other measures.

Matrix Consulting Group President Richard Brady argued it should. Police should be spending time in the community building relationships, not just responding to calls, he said. He also noted the risk of burnout and "service-level implications" from officers constantly going from call to call.

Milwaukee police surveyed six other police agencies across the U.S. – in Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City, Omaha, Neb.; Charlotte, N.C. and Mesa, Ariz. – about how they determine where to deploy officers.

Only Atlanta police said they consider proactive policing time in those decisions, according to a Milwaukee Police Department memo.

But a memo from the city's Legislative Reference Bureau cited several pieces of research that suggest it is worthwhile for police to devote at least a third of their time to proactive policing. They concluded that proactive policing can reduce crime and disorder, at least in the short term, and most proactive strategies do not harm attitudes toward police.

The same memo also said the Madison Police Department has a goal of reaching a 50-50 split for proactive and reactive policing time.

Spiker pointed out it is important to know what officers are doing while being “proactive.” He referenced the city’s 2018 settlement with the ACLU of Wisconsin over police stop-and-frisk practices.

"Proactive time on its own isn't valuable unless we know what you're going to do with it and unless we provide training for what to do with it," he said.

Why did Milwaukee undertake this staffing study?

The study came out of a heated debate at City Hall over taking a federal grant for more police officers following community calls for change after Floyd's death in May 2020.

Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa, who chairs the council's Public Safety and Health Committee, called the study “the silver lining” that came out of the grant discussion.

What are officials going to do with the staffing study?

Ed Fallone, the chair of the Fire and Police Commission, said he is hoping that by late summer or early fall the commission and the Police Department can determine what recommendations from the study they want to pursue.

To get there, he said the commission and police officials will hold multiple public discussions on the matter, beginning with a March 9 meeting with the commission's Testing and Recruiting Committee.

Where does the work of the separate task force stand?

The task force, created in 2021 to find alternative responses to some 911 calls, presented its "interim master plan" to a council committee in recent weeks.

But changing the system is a heavy lift that will require additional research and multiple phases.

Assistant Fire Chief Joshua Parish, who became chair of the task force late last year, spoke in recent weeks to the complexities of setting up an alternative response system, including identifying and defining suitable calls.

The city would also need to determine the desired outcomes for different types of calls in order to set up appropriate responses.

"If our desire for an outcome for a homeless individual is just to not be on the street, that's very different than the desire for the individual to be housed forever," he told the council's Public Safety and Health Committee.

He said a researcher would need to be brought on to parse out calls that could be part of a pilot program, map out a new system and define desired outcomes.

How much of this depends on Milwaukee getting more money?

Milwaukee is facing drastic cuts to services if state leaders don't allow the city to access new revenue streams, imperiling at least some of the city's ability to invest in changing its public safety systems.

Funding that returns to local governments from the state has long been stagnant, while those governments' alternative options for raising revenue in other ways are also limited.

The city's ever-tighter annual budgets have already forced cuts to city services, including the police force, in recent years. Those problems are only expected to worsen if nothing changes.

A third analysis is under way that seeks options for Milwaukee to more efficiently deliver some services amid tight budgets and the push by Milwaukee-area leaders for more revenue options from the state.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: What to know about new proposals to change public safety in Milwaukee