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Show t 4 1 i. M J i -' '- " --' " ' " ; I ....... ' ": 4 : i "HOGAN'S ALLEY" was initiated into in-to the Vernal Police Department's annual recertif ication testing this year. It's purpose pur-pose is to give officers more realistic training. train-ing. Targets move up and down, may be Maples resolves conflict wsvb police deparmentf A major problem concerning the .Naples City Police Department may. have been averted at the Naples City Council meeting Wednesday. About a month ago the city council decided they could not afford to pay their police officers overtime pay. It was decided the officers would instead receive compensation vacation rather than overtime pay. The police force in Naples consists of John Ledkins, Chief of police and officers of-ficers Lonn Salmon and Bill Boody. Since the time the city council decided decid-ed against overtime pay, the three have already accumulated about 90 house of combined overtime. With the force working the amount of hours they do, they can still only patrol the city 71 percent of the time. The officers says there is no way they can take a vacation, because there would then not be sufficient police protection. The compensation vacation pay they are accumulating, they say will never be able to use. Since the budget is running runn-ing short for the current fiscal year, the city council say they cannot afford the overtime. Chief Ledkins told the council he is very pleased with his officers, and he hopes to keep them on the force, but there is no way that will happen if they are expected to work a great deal of friendly or hostile, and officers are expected ex-pected to make the correct split second decision. It provides valuable training in marksmanship, decision making, and tactical tac-tical situations. overtime, and they are not compensated compen-sated fur it somehow, sirscc compensation compen-sation vacation is not a possibility, he is afraid the officers will go to another force where they are adequately compensated com-pensated for the time they work. In order to overcome the problem. Cheif Ledkins offered a plan to change the way the officers are paid from and hourly wage to salary. L'nder the current cur-rent system, with an already scheduled schedul-ed pay increase, officers would get $1,700 per month with no overtime. Cheif Ledkins would get $2,118 without overtime. Ledkins plans involves dropping drop-ping all overtime pay, and increasing the officers pay to $1,900 per month, and his own to $2,450 per month. Potential Poten-tial earnings, with overtime, would drop from $2,200 for officers and $2,700 for Chief Ledkins. The sentiment of the council was that they did not want to lose the present pre-sent officers and to keep them they realized some compensation must be made. Chief Ledkins' plan was tentatively ten-tatively approved in a total police budget of $136,182. Ledkins said there is a chance Naples City will be given a federal grant because of the high number of drunken drivers picked up in Naples. He said there is also a chance money will be appropriated through the White River Shale Project and Paraho Oil hale Projtct mitigation money. Negotiations for that money are currently cur-rently underway. If they do get some momentary assistance to the point of being able to fund another officer, Ledkins said he and his officers will be more than happy to return to the regular pay schedule, since they would make more money under that system anyway. He said if the overtime is no longer there, none of them would mind having more time for themselves. Ledkins said under his proposal, the city ci-ty is apt to save up to $12,258 by paying pay-ing no overtime. He said the deviation from the regular pay schedule is for one year only, and it is basically a concession con-cession by the police department to help the city while money is short. Ledkins said just the concept of the Naples Police Department creates certain problems. Local people are skeptical about going to work for Naples, because they are afraid Naples might not exist in a few years. He said he personally doesn't believe it, but the political controversey surrounding sur-rounding Naples leads people to question. ques-tion. He does not belive there is a problem pro-blem with the officers he now has leaving, leav-ing, but that is an inherent problem Continued on page 12 Naples... Continued from page 1 when you transplant people like Naples has done, and may need to continue con-tinue to do in the future. The one problem Ledkins says must be avoided is for the officers to get an "I don't care" attitude. The force is now handling the work of six men, and there is no way they could that without total dedication, he said. Right now it's almost immpossible to even to be away for a weekend, because it leaves the force shorthanded. Ledkins says he hopes money will become available which will allow them to hire another officer and many of the problems will be resolved. |
