Since my retirement several months ago, I have been following the debates over the Butler Police Department manning levels, the rank structure and dispatch with interest. In the 32 years I served the people of Butler, I was continuously amazed at the city council's tendency to lay the responsibility for bringing the ends of the city budget together at the feet of the police department.

When manning issues like this arise, the council pulls out the same old saw on how the city is going to be hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red at the end of the year. Surprisingly, when the end of the year comes around or at election time, we hear how the city now has hundreds of thousands of dollars surplus.

In the past, there has been more than a $500,000 difference in what the council projected and what the city actually ended up with. That was approximately 20 percent of the annual budget for that year.

Any businesses that projected their budgets in that manner wouldn't last long.

The council has used this tactic for years, and now it has inherited a credibility problem from prior councils and the citizens are tired of it.

The council has a long history of questionable decisions. When I first came to work for the city, the older homes throughout were occupied by the owners. As time went on, these old homes were put up for sale and purchased by absentee landlords who were permitted, by zoning ordinance changes, to divide them into multiple- family dwellings.

Because of the tax structure, these multiple-family dwellings bring no more taxes to the city coffers than they did 20 or 30 years ago. A majority of the income that they generate goes to landlords who live outside the city.

Before I retired, an informal study was made of the records of the police and fire departments. It was discovered that approximately 80 percent of the police and emergency services' budget was expended on services to those multiple-family dwellings.

That means that the people who own and live in residences in the city are paying a disproportionate share of the costs while revenue is flowing out to other municipalities.

Now we witness the council eviscerating the police department in what is claimed to be an attempt to save money. No discussion of the hidden costs have been discussed in the media to date.

Using the statistics that already have been published, police receive 60,000 calls a year. They dispatch police units to 12,000 of those calls.

So, how are the other 48,000 calls handled? They are handled by the desk sergeant, who has the authority to advise people about their problems or issue a warning for someone to go to bed for the night because, if a police car is dispatched, he or she is going to be arrested.

Operators for the Butler County Communications (911) Center are not permitted to give advice or warnings. They do not have the authority, training or experience to do so. This means the 911 operators are going to have to dispatch a police cruiser to those other 48,000 calls.

This means five times the vehicle operating expense. Cruisers will need to be replaced more often, operating and maintenance fees will be five times greater, and the officers will expend the most precious of police assets — time — in traveling to and from these calls that should be handled over the telephone.

What about when there are prisoners in the city's holding cell? Who is going to monitor those prisoners' conduct and safety? We have had prisoners attempt suicide while in the holding cells, and some prisoners have become ill and medical treatment needed to be summoned.

The only reason the prisoners were prevented from dying was the quick response of the desk sergeant.

Is the city going to have an officer come in off the road to monitor the prisoners and leave the dispatch duties with 911? Or, is the city going to broadcast the closed-circuit television of the cells to 911 and have the 911 center assume the responsibility for monitoring prisoners?

Who assumes the civil liability then? If prisoner monitoring remains the responsibility of the city police, then the city has saved nothing.

Other statistics that need to be considered are the Uniform Crime Reports. The reports show a consistent ratio of the crime in Butler County/City.

There are 26 police agencies in Butler County. Crime is basically divided into Class I and Class II crimes. Class I crimes are serious felonies; Class II crimes are mostly misdemeanors.

From the year 2000 through 2005, the state police handled about one-third of the Class I crimes in Butler County. The other 24 police agencies in the county, not including the city police, handled about one-third, and the city police handled the remaining third, with only 22 officers.

The city police handled more Class II crimes in the same time period than all the other police agencies in the county added together, including the state police. Again, the city police did it with only 22 officers, as opposed to the more than 200 officers throughout the rest of the county.

These statistics are available online on the state police Web site.

This should tell the reader that the city police have a system that is effective and efficient. If it's not broke, don't try to fix it.

I think the most telling of all was when one city council member was quoted as suggesting closing the police station from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. so the sergeant can go on patrol. How would the telephones and 911 ringdown line be answered? Who would prioritize the calls?

This, if anything, demonstrates that people are making these decisions while having no idea what is going on. No wonder Chief Tim Fennell gaped when he heard it.

I congratulate the chief on an impressive display of self-control.

Why doesn't the council demonstrate concern that the city's firefighters are paid to sleep at night? Under the council's plan, firefighters would sleep while police officers' duties would be increased fivefold.

I'm sure that it will be mentioned that the contract with the firefighters prevents them from doing anything. The council negotiated the contract with the firefighters and agreed to the provisions in the current contract.

The council needs to review that contract. I am advised that case law negates some restrictions that have existed in the past concerning manpower in the fire department.

The current dispatch system has withstood the test of time and court action. This brings to mind a term: deliberate indifference. I think that the council should consider that very carefully.

Continuing on a path, knowing that it poses substantial risks to the safety of the citizens of Butler, the police officers and those who the police take into custody, when an already established system addresses those issues competently and adequately, may fit the definition of deliberate indifference, since council members have been adequately warned.

The council needs to seriously reconsider its direction on these issues. The council needs to discover a way to have landlords share a more proportionate cost of police and emergency services. The council needs to find ways to enable the police department to do its job better, not by increasing its workload five times.

The council needs to look to other areas of city government to pare costs, by looking at all of the city departments' rank structures and distribute the cuts and rank level eliminations fairly throughout.

I ask the citizens of the rest of Butler County how they would feel about their safety possibly being compromised by the additional workload and confusion that the city's proposal would cause at county control? I wonder how taxpayers in other areas of the county feel about having their tax dollars used to bail out the city, when other options that might be open haven't been explored.

City police officers are frustrated and their morale is at an all-time low. They have tried to convince the council that the problems the city faces are unique, and that the current system, which has evolved over time, is the best solution.

It has withstood the tests of time and fire.

The officers see a train wreck coming, and no matter how they try to convince the council not to throw the switch on that track, the council still has its hand on the lever.

Once the change has been made and it becomes apparent that having an officer dispatch calls was better, the city nevertheless will never return to it. The council won't be able to because it would have to admit it was wrong and that council members wasted thousands of dollars on another bad decision.

After all, the council won't have to live with it; the citizens and police officers will.

People need to consider very carefully how the proposed changes are going to impact the quality of their lives and the lives of their families. Citizens from throughout the county should write to the county commissioners and city council members and let their opinions be known.

Those who live outside the city should write to their borough council members and township supervisors too. Unfortunately, the only thing an elected official understands is a letter from a constituent voicing his or her opinion.

Elected officials know that if someone cares enough to write to them about an issue, even if it is just a short note, that person will remember the issue come election time.

If the citizens of Butler expect city police officers to respond in a timely fashion if they have a life-threatening emergency in the future, they need to do something now so the police will be able to be there for them later.

Jack Plaisted is a retired captain of the Butler Police Department.