With Butler Police Chief Ron Brown and Deputy Chief Dave Adam under fire from rank-and-file members of the department and on paid administrative leave, both of the city’s public safety departments are now without full-time leadership.

This is the first crisis in Ben Smith’s young term as mayor of Butler, and the jury is still out on whether or not he is handling it appropriately.

That’s because he really hasn’t yet handled anything.

Putting the top two administrators of the city’s most expensive public service — running Butler Police Department will cost more than $2.3 million this year, according to the city’s amended 2018 budget — on paid leave doesn’t solve anything. It simply buys the mayor time to consider all the options, and associated ramifications, open to him.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing in the short term. We sharply criticized former Mayor Tom Donaldson for precipitous and unilateral moves over the course of his term in office. It makes little sense to demand Mayor Smith take that same approach now.

However, there is a fine line between careful consideration and executive paralysis. That’s a line the city, and Mayor Smith, simply cannot afford to cross.

Having two highly-paid police administrators — Adam will make about $75,000 this year and Brown slightly more than $88,000, according to the city budget — collecting salaries but not performing their duties is essentially what the rank-and-file members of the city’s police union are raising concerns about.

It would be foolish to believe that members of the department will tolerate any delays that are perceived as unnecessary or in bad faith.

It would also be ill-advised for a cash-strapped city like Butler to essentially throw money away delaying action on this matter.

Residents need look no further than Butler Fire Department since the removal of former Fire Chief Nick Ban to see why this is a real concern. Ban was demoted in April of 2016 and retired shortly thereafter, in a move that earned Donaldson blowback from city residents and members of council, and a formal censure from the firefighters union.

Here we are, more than two years later, and Butler still has no fire chief to oversee a $2 million department that now lacks vital equipment like a functioning ladder truck.

To the department’s credit, it continues to provide outstanding service. But the lack of urgency city officials have shown when it comes to finding a fire chief is alarming. That same course of conduct cannot be allowed to play out at the police department.

The final point we want to raise may be something Mayor Smith won’t enjoy hearing.

Few elected executives willingly give up power that has been accumulated by their office. But it is time to consider whether authority to fill and remove people from these highly-paid leadership positions should rest with one person.

By giving a single elected official the power to promote and demote employees into and out of administrative positions of authority, the city code politicizes what should be a merit-based process.

To the mayor’s credit, thus far he has said the right things. Smith says he continues to consult with members of council, the FOP, and with Adam and Brown on the matter. That’s exactly what he should be doing — again, as long as the process does not devolve into paralysis.

But the underlying issue — the process by which these positions are filled — should be addressed as well. There’s no reason for the department to be subjected to what is essentially a formalized system of political patronage.