Springfield City Council — April 22, 2024

0:04 I'm going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call. Mayor Van Gordon. Here. Councillors Weber. Here. Moe. Here. Rodney. Here. Blackwell. Here. Doyle. Here. And Pishioneri. Here. Thank you. Before we get started for the evening, um Neil, can you maybe share a little bit about maybe the recognition that you got this weekend? Uh yes, Mayor. I'd be happy to. So, I was honored with uh um SACA um Arts and Advocacy Award um on Saturday night, which was pretty awesome. And uh that was for the work that we've all done. Uh though, if you think about it in Springfield our uh mayors and councils over the years have uh allowed us to do art projects, public

0:51 art projects um provided funding and then also the uh political cover to do some of these weird projects that we've done all in all to benefit downtown Springfield. Um and then also that has helped us uh reach out to organizations throughout the community and help them do projects, whether they're nonprofits or veterans or um a host of businesses. So, it was a great honor. It was an awesome evening and I appreciate it. Well, congratulations from us. It is well deserved and we appreciate your work on downtown art. All right, we've got a couple work session items for this evening. The first one is wastewater and storm water user fees fiscal year 2024 to 2025. Yeah.

1:48 Hey. Um welcome uh Mayor and City Council. It's my pleasure to be here tonight. I am Matt Stauter, the city's environmental services director. I also serve as the MWMC's executive officer and I understand Jeff's not here very often so I invited him to be with me as well to watch over my shoulder and help out. Okay, we're here every year to talk about rates. So we have a presentation outline for you tonight talk a little bit about our revenues, the systems, some of the challenges associated with those systems, a little bit about our permit status and then our some our programs and rate options. This picture here is a the mill race represents one of our water quality features that we

2:34 installed recently. Okay, revenue goals. So user fees basically are the primary source of revenue for funding the city's work with respect to work that's done in the stormwater and wastewater system and they're the sole source of revenue for our operations and maintenance work. You can see here some of the goals that we try to accomplish with the revenue that we bring in getting our O&M programs. We fund the CIP with these with these sources of funds, maintain our debt service requirements and then look to maintain instead of increase maintain our capital reserves. I'll note that for wastewater user fee revenues are approximately 85% of the total money that the city brings in SDC's being the other large component and for stormwater it's about 93% of the

3:20 work that we do is accomplished with user fee revenues. I think we show this slide we show pretty much all these slides every year but I think this is a good one to remind the council of just how large and significant these systems are. So we have the two components of the wastewater system of course there's the regional treatment component that the MWCC oversees and manages but in Springfield we have a 200 over 250 miles of pipes wastewater pipes that are in the ground and then 16 different pump stations some that are fairly large. Uh, we have 190 miles of stormwater pipelines and over 6,000 uh, catch basins that are in the ground. And then we have a number of increasing It says 244 there, but an increasing number of water quality features that uh, required

4:05 to be installed when new development goes in or when the city does a project and increases impervious surface. Those are required for uh, for due to our our stormwater permit and they're a regulatory requirement. Um, we also have numerous outfalls to the local waterways and then we do a lot of speech impediment activities in those systems. I think I note this each year, but the asset value of our systems are is on the order of of a hundreds of millions of dollars. Okay. Um, a few challenges to associated with paying for clean water. Um, note that we have a fixed operating cost in the sense that the system needs to be maintained regardless of the usage, especially in wastewater. So, whether people are using a lot of water in their household or very little water in their household,

4:51 um, the pump stations are still running. The system still needs to be maintained, jetted out, that sort of stuff. Um, so we have fixed operating cost. Uh, we have aging infrastructure. Uh, there's a large part of our of our system that's starting to age out. Uh, needs to be replaced. Jeff can talk a little bit about that. Um, of course we have our capital components and capital projects that we want to uh, install, whether that's um, for new development or you know, in different areas of the city. Uh, and then we we we often see uh, uh, cost of construction that are inflating at rates that are higher than standard inflation and we've certainly seen that in the last several years. Um, and then I'll the last thing I'll note is that we have a some the principal principal and interest payments associated with our existing bonds.

5:38 Briefly, um, on our permits, our discharge permits, so um, we have a our new, which is not really new anymore, stormwater permit that was issued in 2021. Um, that permit has been placed on administrative extension by DEQ at the 1st of March along with everybody else who's a phase two city. We expect renewal. We were expecting renewal earlier and I think it's going to be on the order of probably towards the end of the year we'll have a renewed permit. They began development. We haven't got any detail yet. When we get some detail we'll visit the council on what that means. Certainly what it will mean is some additional requirements that we'll need to meet. The stormwater permit lays the framework for all the work that we do in those systems. Council was very good about recently updating several ordinances associated with our

6:23 IDDE program, our grading and erosion program, and then our post-construction development program. Those ordinances were passed this year and they were a result of the requirements that were associated with our 2021 permit. On the wastewater side we have a permit that was issued after a long period of being on extension in November of '22. It has a number of complex treatment requirements. There are some things that are applicable to Springfield. We're not allowed to have any SSO sanitary sewer overflows. We have to do a certain amount of cleaning in the system and then there's a whole host of requirements that we have to meet on the regional side. This slide illustrates some of the programs that are funded with user fees. I won't go into detail here. I would note that there's

7:08 a couple pictures there. The top one is our Kids for Clean Water Calendar Contest which is going on right now. We received over 270 photo entries from folks in the community for that. So um that's one of the programs that's that's funded with the user fees. I'll let Jeff talk a little bit about local wastewater and then we'll come back to me with some rate options. Um yeah, so here to give the council a little bit of a preview of Jeff you're not Thank you. Sorry about that. Here to give the council a little bit of a preview ahead of um this this work that will be bringing in front of you in June and that's the wastewater master plan update. So we've been working on that in the pictures you see what some of the

7:54 revenue that we do collect for the wastewater system goes for and that's just operations and maintenance of our existing assets as Matt mentioned. So on this slide it kind of represents all of the factors that go into calculating and what we need for revenue for the wastewater system and as I mentioned in Council and some of the new counselors may not be aware but we've been for the last several years working on updating our wastewater master plan. The last update was 2008. So for the last several years we've been working on the model modeling the system to figure out what the impacts are what the load is and then looking for any areas where there's deficiencies so that we can plan those out. So the next master plan that will be coming to the council later this year will look out to

8:41 2044. With that we anticipate so one of the things we look at is full build out. So there's a lot of expansion projects looking at all of the UGB what would it take to serve the UGB and all of those areas that are not currently annexed. Additionally we also looked at our C mom our capacity management maintenance operations and management system which is how we are controlling the system and maintaining the system and with that we had our consultant analyze all of the pipe and we have about 130 miles of pipe that is 1984 older is old as 1965 pipe vintage pipe and looking at how many miles we have and updating that. So when Matt mentioned that we have infrastructure that's starting to reach

9:26 its end of useful life or its its life expect expectancy that's that 130 miles of pipe and so analyzing that. With that we had the consultant take all of those factors up there and those rates, and we also developed a 20-year strategic financial plan for the wastewater system. So, look at we're looking at debt retirement, we're looking at our reserves, and what what are those factors? We're looking at staffing and all of them needs also for the capital. And so, this is kind of that preview. With that, we bundled that up and and if we were to do as a pay-as-you-go or a cash system, we would be looking at about an 8% rate increase over the next um 10 years to accomplish that. So, not that's just the worst-case scenario or if we wanted to do a pay-as-you-go. So,

10:12 that all went into kind of that development of the scenario or of the options that's recommended that Matt had um brought in. And so, just wanted to give the council that that kind of preview of what's going into the wastewater master plan and looking at what it takes to operate and maintain the system and keep our um fund healthy. Okay. Um So, this slide shows the stormwater rates for various communities uh looking back to last February. Um last year, the council authorized Excuse me, this is wastewater. I think I Anyway, uh looking back, council authorized a 2.5% rate adjustment last year. The blue component represents the regional or MWMC component, and then the green is the local component on Springfield and Eugene there.

10:58 I'd note that this is a for This is what the average person would pay if they're using about 5,000 gallons a month uh of water um or generating 5,000 gallons of wastewater. This is a a a It's to normalize across communities. The average household in Springfield uses about 4,200, and in in Eugene, they use about 3,700. It's strictly due to to household size. Um I'll note that I I note each year that uh Eugene's local rate is lower than Springfield's in part uh mainly due to the fact that Springfield had to sell bonds in the past um had a lesser population base to spread that um that those funds out over, um, and so you'll see that in taking on that additional debt, we had to increase our rates um, higher than maybe we would have liked, but we're still very competitive in looking at other communities.

11:44 I would note also that, um, Eugene is aware of, uh, some issues in our wastewater system and are working on aggressively, um, abating some of those. They had a 11% adjustment last year and a 6% adjustment this year. And so, I think we'll get to what we're proposing here in a second, but I just wanted to note that. And Joe, did you have questions then? Just a quick one, Matt. Can you explain I know I understand as far as the Excuse me, the disparity between Eugene and Springfield on their base rates and why it's like 30% higher in Springfield because of those bonds and, you know, smaller group of people to pay for a large bond. Do those get paid off or when do they when do they expire or when can those be retired or are they in perpetuity?

12:29 So, I don't have the answers to when the So, they will get paid off. I don't know. Jeff may know if they're already paid off. Um, the wastewater bond, I believe is going to be paid off in 2027. We originally sold it in 2029 or 2009 and through refinancing, we're looking at paying it off a little earlier. I think the stormwater bond is still scheduled to be paid off around 2030. So, how will that affect the ratepayers monetarily on this average? Well, I think that's where this preview on the strategic financial plan is is looking at the work that we still continue to need need to accomplish and what's that right, um, mix of rates. So, looking at what future rates are over the next 20 years. Now, we haven't done

13:14 a strategic financial plan for stormwater. That would be, you know, we're looking at doing that in the next couple of years. But, looking at wastewater is that's that conversation we're here to have with you is here's all the the that we have to do to keep the asset that we do own and maintain in good working order and what's that right and what's the right reserve to have do we want to sell future bonds for expansion projects rather than have higher rates and that's kind of what this financial tool is looking like and so I don't know that you would see any reduction in rates I think what you would see is how do we set the rates to meet the current inflation and and the work that we do need to accomplish over at least the next life of the master plan which is 20 years.

13:59 We have looked at that on the regional side as well we have bonds on the regional side as you're aware and that in that case the rates will be adjusted downward for very different different factors. Okay jumping into storm water here there's a photo of our upstream art and then I think there's a a factor truck out there in the ice storm responding. Okay. On the storm water side this shows again Springfield Springfield in relation to other communities it's not an apples to apples comparison because the requirements for storm water standards are different in the different communities based on the permitting requirements. Looking back last year council authorized a 3% adjustment and I would note that one of the reasons Springfield here in this case Springfield's on the higher end is where the we were the fortunate

14:44 enough to be the first community phase two community in the state of Oregon that received a permit from DEQ thus implementing a number of standards that we needed to uh to pass along and that results in higher higher fees I think I'll give you some numbers in the next slide to hopefully put that in context. Maybe two slides. Okay so we have a couple of rate options for you we always present a couple of rate options this first option shows a 6% adjustment in year this is a more aggressive option 6% adjustment for local waste water in year one taking into account some of the factors that Jeff has talked about with the modeling in the master plan, our 20-year plan, and a 3 and 1/2% for stormwater. This is considerations for the renewal of our permit that's coming up, which we

15:30 know is going to have increasing regulatory requirements, and then you know, cost of construction, inflation, etc. Um the second option is a little bit less aggressive and proposes a 5% adjustment on the local wastewater side and a 3% adjustment on the stormwater side. And I'll show these side by side here in a second. I would note that um I feel we feel like option two represents the the best response, most responsible adjustment given the upcoming considerations. Um we're looking at we like to have a a rate history and we do have a rate history of small incremental rate increases over time that allows folks to be kind of understand they kind of can predict what where we're going. Um if we're inflating almost annually at

16:15 about 2 to 3% um folks kind of expect that. Um I would note that in the last 10 years um our average for adjustment on stormwater has been 2.8% and on wastewater has been 2.2% over that same time period. Inflation and CPI has been around approximately 4%. So I think we've been a while we haven't been necessarily keeping up with inflation, we've been um I think annually adjusting these in a responsible manner that allows us to meet all of our permit requirements, construct our capital projects, maintain the systems, etc. Um nearing the end here. I think this second to last slide or so. This shows options one and two side by side. Um you'll see the difference the difference to the to the resident based on monthly the monthly

17:00 rates there. Um approximately 30 cents 30 36 cents on the wastewater side a month and 15 17 cents or so on the stormwater side. Um If anybody's interested, um our revenues on the our annual revenues are about 7.9 million for each system. And a 1% rate adjustment represents approximately $80,000. So, while we're not giving you wild um wild uh numbers here like, you know, differences between 0%, 5%, 10%, um we feel like keeping on the trajectory that we've been on with these smaller incremental rate increases over time um is the best approach. Last slide, um just representing what the MWMC is doing. Uh we our commission

17:47 took action at a public hearing uh on the 12th of April and uh authorized a 5.5% adjustment. That's based on a rate model and a number of other factors. We're looking at about a 3 and 1/2 to 3 and a 3.75 in the outer years um after we pay off that debt. Um that those numbers, while they will be included on the customer's bill when they pay the bill, um those will be embedded into our MWMC's regional budget and that'll be scheduled for council action for ratification um on May 6th. With So, with that, um Jeff and I are available for questions that you may have and we're looking for a direction on rate op- on rates to bring back to you on the 6th of May uh for, you know, a public hearing to uh set rates for the coming year. Any questions?

18:34 Okay. So, we also have to select an option for them. Any ideas on an option? Corey. I'm comfortable with option two, which is the one that they recommended and a little a little bit more moderate. I do want to say one, I appreciate all of this information and I appreciate it every year. Um and I do like, and we've talked about this before, I do like the idea of of, like you said, keeping it so that people know what to expect and we don't end up with these big, you know, up to 8% or down to 2%. So, I'm comfortable with option two. Joe. Yeah, thank you very much for the um presentation. It reflects well with the

19:19 MWMC Commission has tried to convey and um I know that everything was was hashed out quite quite rigorously during the meetings and I'm very comfortable with option two. All right. Anybody else? All right. Option two is the answer. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you so much. Our next work session item is fiscal year 2025 CDBG annual action plan. Good evening, Mayor Council.

20:04 Um I'm here tonight with a fiscal year 25 Community Development Block Grant CDBG annual action plan. As you recall, the city receives an annual allocation from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development HUD through the Community Development Block Grant CDBG program. Uh last year we received or this year rather um we received about $550,000 for the year. Uh the CDBG program is primarily intended to benefit low and moderate income residents of Springfield through different projects, programs, and activities um that the city can select. Uh in order to receive these funds each year, the city must create an annual action plan detailing how we intend to allocate next year's funds.

20:50 As part of the creation of this plan, the city must follow its uh public participation plan which relies on the council's own Community Development Advisory Committee to hold public hearings and make a recommendation to council. So, I previously came to council on February 20th with the draft plan. You gave direction to publish that for comment. It went out for a 30-day public comment period and the CDAC most recently met April 3rd, held the public hearing. No one spoke, but they did meet and convened and have since made a recommendation to council on allocation of funds and that recommendation is in your packet. It's attachment two.

21:41 So you'll see in the packet um the recommendation is actually the same as the draft allocation. The city still has not received its allocation from HUD yet. Hopefully in the next month, so we're working with estimated numbers. Um but you'll see that the committee is supporting as you had directed um the strategies including the home repair program, which is the city's program to help very low-income homeowners with needed home repairs, plumbing, heating issues. The city's down payment assistance program. This is helping low-income home buyers purchase a home here in Springfield. Supporting local nonprofits serving low-income clients in Springfield through a contribution to Lane County, which they administer.

22:27 And then also capturing planning and administrative costs. Um as I mentioned, we're still using estimated numbers. Um the CDAC's recommendation does include how the allocation should be adjusted if HUD's uh entitlement grant to us does increase or decrease. You'll see that the recommendation is that we maximize the funding toward Lane County for social services and maximize the amount we're able to take to cover our administrative costs. And then from there uh, to adjust the other two strategies proportionally to how they're allocated in the plan currently. So, my question to you all, um, how would you like to move forward? Do you want to move forward with our

23:12 recommendation? Um, Corey and then Joe. Thank you for this. Um, I have a question for you first of all, that 83302 to human services, is that the same number or is that including sort of an increase cuz I can't remember what it was last year. So, um, the 83 is actually less than we allowed this year. Um, so HUD, um, well, Congress actually. Congress, um, caps what you're able to contribute for that kind of activity at 15% of your entitlement amount plus 15% of any program income we receive. So, that could be like a loan program we had in the past, I guess, repaid, we can take an additional 15% off those proceeds and put it toward public

23:58 services, for example. So, in previous years we've had additional program income we've received and be able to take additional 15% and so, um, I think this year's contribution to Lane County for social services is closer to 95,000. But, we have not seen the program income from last year to be able to take, uh, the extra 15% off of that. So, the 83 is representing the cap we have this year. From this pocket of money. Yes, pocket of money. Okay, that's helpful to know cuz as you know, like last year I'll be kind of paying attention to that. And I would be nice. Point out it's the same for planning administration as well. So, usually you can take 20% of your entitlement plus an additional 20% of program income received and we've not received that, so

24:45 just want to point that out as well. Thank you for that. And then my second piece is, um, and the last time you we just sort of talked about things and moved it along and it's coming back. Um, I still am interested in how do we find money to support the early child care business accelerator program as you know cuz we've seen lots of emails and conversations about that and I think it came to all of council in terms of a letter of what that looks like. I don't know if it comes out of CDBG funds in like promoting employment opportunities and economic development and again I'm one person with opinions about how do we support um these folks who are starting these businesses. Um so I don't know if it comes out of here, if we adjust it, or if it comes from somewhere else, or if everybody's like

25:30 we don't care about that. But that's just something I want to put on the record. Those two things is one I think it's important that we uh try to continue to support human services especially moving forward and that business accelerator program which is serving um emerging for folks who don't know um people with home day cares and child cares um in and there are Springfield folks who go through this program and then get a grant to help them start their businesses um in Springfield. That's it. Joe. Thank you. Um I appreciate the numbers. I support those numbers. Um couple of little quick questions. The last I think our trip our DC trip was there was a we wanted to took a take

26:15 a look at the cap. And that was an ask I think was this was this where we're asking the cap for this part of the program through through HUD? Yeah, previous conversation I imagine um it might have touched upon the public service cap for 15%. Right. Um and Go ahead and I'll just clear it up here. We're watching that and and seeing what kind of feedback we're getting which should help us quite a bit. And then there was also the the length of time in which the projects have to be completed by but this may be a different It's the same one, right? It's relevant, yeah. So the time in which projects must be completed we asked HUD um to extend that and please if you could help keep the council apprised as

27:00 to how that's moving along or what kind of feedback we're getting. I think it's really important and it may affect these numbers quite a bit before we even start going with the numbers. And it may have to need a complete revampment of of coming back to council with with those those new numbers. But I support what you have going down there. Makes makes sense to me. So Can I add Yeah, absolutely. So on the the 15% cap, um so that was by Congress Congress created the program. So it's it's not just HUD's ability to change the cap. It would have to be Congress. Um but during COVID when HUD instituted or Congress instituted um the CDBG Coronavirus Relief Program modeled off of the CDBG program, they

27:47 took the cap away. And they they made a few other adjustments to make it easier and this council went ahead and put 100% I think minus a small amount toward admin, they put 100% toward public services recognizing that was a need. Um So yes. Yeah, no I get it and I and I I'll restate what I said and I may have misspoke. I think it was actually we're speaking with the uh senators directly in regards to this and seeing if they can't support that change. So Love it. Yeah. The Can I add one more for the the timeliness? So that is a HUD specific issue and they most recently published a notice of rulemaking in January that I think um ended public comment period in March with the

28:32 proposal to recognize that their timeliness test as they're requiring funds be spent quickly um and this will be relevant on my next item tonight is that it is I don't know if the best word is hurting a community's ability to focus on bigger projects because if the timeliness test is causing us to need to spend funds quickly, then we're focusing on different projects maybe than what we as a community need. So, um part of what they're proposing is to sort of address that mismatch um with a few changes. I don't know where those have landed yet. We submitted comment as a city on the support for the intent without knowing exactly how it would affect us. And I think part of that conversation is

29:17 the ability for us to adjust the the numbers because over 5, 6, 7-year period, you're going to have some economic turns both ways and also construction costs which may kill a project in 5 years and not even get it going because of the changed numbers. So, that's I think that's being looked on. Yeah. Steve. I'm I'm counting liaison on this committee and I really do enjoy it. But I want everybody to know that many members really get involved with these issues. And and the recommendations we're making right now are supported by them and they did a fine job. Thank you. All right, any other comment?

30:04 I think the alley the recommendation looks good to us. So, if you want to roll it over to the adoption stage when we get there. Are you ready to dive into the timeliness question? Yes. Um yeah, and I'll just say that um the annual action plan that'll come to you uh on May 6th for adoption. Um if we still don't know final numbers, we can include the adjustment that you'll approve and then whenever it comes, we'll be able to move it forward. So. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. The second thing I have tonight that's in your packet um is the need to reallocate prior year CDBG funds for a project that is not ready to proceed. Um per HUD regulations, the seat the city needs to spend our CDBG funds in a

30:50 timely manner. Staff have been working with our HUD representative on this issue and also with the respective agencies and projects on getting funds spent quickly. The oldest of these funds uh were allocated in 2021 and 2022 or me Catholic Community Services to construct a new day center for the Oasis program serving homeless families with children. That project is still needed in the community. CCS has stated they still support the project. But there have been a number of unforeseen factors that have changed since these funds were since awarded. Um currently the environmental review that's required by HUD um before the project can move forward, that is still underway for a variety of factors.

31:36 Um I do see an a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm hopeful that this summer we can complete it. Um but it has been preventing the project from moving forward. Um and while that has delayed us, um we've seen an increase in the cost of the project for close to $400,000 presenting a financing gap. Um additionally, uh Catholic Community Services has um seen a bit of turnover. A few different executive directors have been in place since they first came in for funding and their project manager for the project um has left and they did not replace that position. Um in talking with them, they are still looking into options on how to move the project forward, um

32:21 but nothing is currently certain. Um meanwhile, there's pressure from HUD that these funds need to be spent quickly um or be at risk of being recaptured. So for that reason, staff is recommending that we reallocate these funds toward projects that can be spent in the next year. Um Oasis can still be funded in the future. I would still like to complete the environmental review so that it sets it up for when it is ready to proceed. Um But um we're sort of trying to get ahead of the problem before. Um So staff have looked uh into other strategies on how the funds could be spent. You'll see some of those as options in your packet. Um but our recommendation is to um

33:08 put forward a substantial amendment saying to reallocate the funds. Um we don't need to be specific right now about where we're reallocating those funds. Um but we would follow the public participation plan and that includes putting this out for public comment for 30 days. Um and then your advisory committee would meet with the public hearing, have a discussion, and then make a recommendation to council on how to reallocate those funds. I would say in the meantime staff will continue to um gather more information on potential projects and provide that for both the CEDAC and council. Um So that's my second question for you. Joe. Thank you, Erin. So I'm looking at your your potential options for a reallocation and I'm got

33:54 curious. You said we have a loan out to HUD that's been in existence since 2009 and that you want to potentially pay that off. My question is is what is the interest rate of that loan? I don't know. If it's if it is if it is below 4% I would not support paying it off. I would support reallocating that money and investing it and earning 5% or 6% into an institution if we can or finding a different way in which that money can can earn money as opposed to paying something off and losing money cuz that's really what we'd do. I don't know if it's I don't know if it's restrictions. So, just throwing that out there. And I'm You tell me I'm going to tell you something, you tell me if it if it's related in answers. Okay. Um

34:39 So, the loan we have um is on behalf of then NETCO, now DevNW. Um So, we took out a $450,000 loan and um went through the public process, city decided um we took out this loan with HUD that was available to us um for to help NETCO buy their downtown building and put a affordable how they have four units of affordable housing on the second story. Um DevNW set up a payment plan to pay us back with interest. So, more interest than what we are paying that HUD is requiring. They are paying us back in July and January making payments and then we sort of like carry those funds on to HUD. We pass them through. Um but

35:25 HUD or DevNW DevNW couldn't make the loan directly. We had to be the ones to sign. Um So, while we would use CDBG, we could use CDBG funds to make that loan payment, DevNW would continue to pay us every 6 months. At the interest rate? Mhm. Okay. So, financially I don't see the payoff I don't see the advantage of paying that off. Unless it's costing us money. So, the advantage would be to sort of quote unquote remove CDBG funds off of our books Mhm. and then the payments that come back from DevNW will eventually come into the CDBG program but spread out over time.

36:10 Okay. So, with the aim of meeting the timeliness test by next May, Right. we're sort of spreading it out over the next 5 years rather than having it I'll make good. It's a I'm good with that. Thank you. Yeah. I think good. I just I had to ask. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then on the number two where it says we we allocate the 330,000 you have a couple of options Yeah. there that you may suggest and I and I think those are great options, but I would strongly support the improvement or the um uh what you have here is the rehab of existing housing stock for low-income persons. I support that. I highly support that as opposed to for example um human systems delivery systems or human services delivery systems

36:56 because I think that the low-income areas that that really have the appearance of blight causes a lot of a lot of I I think we could do a lot better and I think that people need to live in places that they can be proud of as opposed to channeling that money elsewhere and I think it'd be well used better bang for the buck I think and then secondly I like the um I like the other option of making improvements to low-income neighborhoods, but you know, streets etc. lighting but not as great as putting in some rehab into existing housing so that they are people can uh live there with the some more pride. Colleen. Thank you. Um thank you for this and um

37:41 I am supportive of this. Um I have a little bit of a different take in terms of course I would like to see us support human services particularly in Springfield um and but what I really want to say is that I would really like to encourage I know we're going to do outreach so and I know probably not a lot of people are watching, you know, a work session, but I would really love to hear from the community as to what they would like to see and this is a perfect opportunity for people to come forth and be like I really want to do more you know, existing housing stock or I really want us to support human services. So this is an opportunity for folks to weigh in and I just want to encourage people to please come and tell us what you think we should reallocate this money for, but I do support and I support paying off

38:26 the loan and all of that. So. Victoria. Um first off, I want to thank you for seeing an issue and you know, kind of looking at those red flags that come up cuz when you see a lot of turnover and when you rate you know, the cost of stuff is getting higher and higher and it keeps getting postponed. Um sometimes we are so invested in a project that we allow our emotions to take place on that. So I appreciate that you that you see that and that you're wanting to react reallocate that and keep that on the still as an option, right? Um I agree with counselor Pishioneri. I think that the idea of um fixing up areas that are in blight conditions. I've always felt like that people um need to feel good about their

39:13 community and when we keep people in an area that's you know, that's run down and what have you, it and that's all people see, then it's hard for them to see how to get beyond that. Um and so I'm 100% uh supportive of that and I do also like the improvements to the low-income neighborhoods. So that's that's my take on it. I also think it's interesting that they give us 20% cap on admin fees, but only 15% for social services. All right, um I'm supportive of the loan as well and then I think work in the public orange process would help us attain to get some get some feedback on some of the places that money money can go. Okay, great. Um as I mentioned, so we'll

39:59 go through the public participation process. We'll have the CEE DAC uh meet, hold a public hearing, um and we'll come back to you for a final decision, I'm hopeful in June. Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. Our last work session item is the annual use of force report 2023 with the Chief Shear.

40:54 Good evening Council Mayor and thank you for allowing us time tonight to present our 2023's force report. Uh beginning in April of 2020 and then again each year since that up until now SPD's presented the use of force reports to this Council. The public reporting of this data stem from a settlement agreement between the city of Springfield and the estate of Stacy Kenny after a shooting death involving the Springfield Police Department in 2019. So use of force by police rightfully demands public transparency. Transparency along with consistent and effective oversight are key components of building and maintaining trust amongst the communities that we serve. So our yearly use of force report includes the frequency of force used the types of force used, types of injuries to both officers and those taken into custody, demographics, and

41:40 transparency about lessons learned. So that is all part of the foundation of trust that we can continue building with this community so that they're confident in the legitimacy of SPD's work. So before I begin, I'd like to introduce Sergeant Justin Myers who leads our professional standards division. Sergeant Myers took this role relatively recently in 2023. So he works closely with our force analyst to create the yearly use of force report while also managing and overseeing and investigating internal affairs cases. And I want to thank him for his commitment to this community and to our work in the areas of accountability, transparency, and continual improvement. I also want to introduce our force analyst, Lilly Wick. Uh her work is critical in our comprehensive data collection, analysis, and our reporting. So, she works throughout the year to ensure that we

42:25 have this report that's in front of you tonight. And I want to thank her for her objective analysis of the data to help us determine where we can improve. And before I turn it over to Sergeant Myers, I want to thank the entire team at SPD for their participation in this transparency effort. It requires additional work, uh more comprehensive reporting and data collection, but the results are tangible. We've also increased the amount of training aimed at keeping our officers safe, while also reducing the frequency and amount of force necessary to resolve incidents. Um I think we understand there's always going to be an inherent level of risk for police when dealing with situations that are uncertain and rapidly evolving. An effective use of force is a necessary component of this profession because of what our community calls on upon our officers to respond to. However, we're always going to strive to resolve incidents in a professional manner that

43:11 respects the sanctity of life of all involved, and that demonstrates dignity and respect to those we interact with. So, with that, I'm going to turn it over to uh Sergeant Myers to go over this year's report. Thank you, Chief. Uh Mayor, City Council, City Leadership, um thank you for the opportunity to present the 2023 Springfield Police Department Use of Force Report. As the Chief said, I'm Sergeant Justin Myers, and I currently manage and supervise the Professional Standards Division at SPD. Uh the division includes analyst Lilly Wick, who's with us here tonight, and a second Sergeant Brian Keatle, uh who's dedicated to training, um equipment, and onboarding of new people. Uh I'd like to start by acknowledging Lilly's work on this report. Um her ability to do to prepare the data that you'll see um is second to none, and without her, this report doesn't look

43:57 like it does. Um Thank you, Lilly. Yeah. Uh I'd also like to thank, as the Chief did, every member of the Springfield Police Department, all the women and men of our department. their efforts on a daily level go into this report and the data you see here is reflective of what they do on a daily basis on every call they go to. So, 2023 is the second full year where the Blue Team IAPro software suite has been used to collect the the data that's compiled in this report. Uh with this, the ability to compare the data in an apples-to-apples format now exists. Uh if you go back to 2021, we were playing catch-up with some of our data um and the numbers weren't as as pure and elegant as maybe they could have been. So, this is our second full year of

44:42 using the the IAPro Blue Team software to collect the data. And as any analyst will tell you, um you know, the end product of their work is only as good as the initial data they receive. Um and Lilly can speak to that uh a little bit later. Uh I want to say if you take nothing else from this presentation or the larger report that was sent out earlier, know that we did more and used less force in 2023. In 2022, SPD officers responded to 29,431 calls for service. And in 2023, that number rose to 31,119 calls. In 2022, we made 3,303 arrests. And in 2023, that number rose to 3,478

45:29 arrests. We get to force events. In 2022, that number was 174. While in 2023, it was down to 153. For 2023, the format of this report and this presentation remains largely the same. And that was intentional. We want to be able to compare on a year-to-year basis the numbers and the trends and the data to look for high points, low points, things that stand out to better understand what goes into a force event, and learn from that data and those events. Once identified, those trends can help shape equipment, training, and even policy decisions. So, this slide is is a repeat from last year. Um it's the routing that our

46:14 use-of-force um reporting software uses. Um I'll take you through it for a refresher for those that are new watching or here with us tonight um that haven't heard it before. But, when an officer or member of the department uh uses force, they complete what we call a Blue Team module. Um and Blue Team is the officer's portal into the IAPro um network of software. And they enter some details about the call, the force that was used, how it was used, its effectiveness, and then send that module to their supervisor. That supervisor reviews the the module, uh reviews the police report, any photos, body cam, any other evidence um that goes along with that that force event, attaches it to the module, and upon their review. Then, it gets forwarded off to the division lieutenant

46:59 for letting yet another layer of review. So, we're putting two sets of eyes on each force event. If there are no concerns with the incident, the module is forwarded into the IAPro database where professional standards is there is then able to review it for completeness, the process was followed, it has the two layers of review, and then category categorize it in our database for later review and putting it in this report. If at any point during that review process, uh additional review or investigation is required, professional standards is consulted and the incident can be addressed accordingly. The other additional review can range from consultation with a subject matter expert uh to an internal administrative investigation or criminal investigation conducted by an outside agency depending on the nature of the conduct.

47:57 We'll go back one. There we go. There we go. You beat me to it. Uh so the uh the routing method hasn't changed as we spoke about. Uh but the one thing to note um as you view the data in this report is the way we count data. And I know Sergeant Massey referenced this in last year's presentation and I'll echo it here tonight is we count everything we can possibly count. Um and then we filter it later. Um and with that we're able to capture as big a picture as we can about what's going on and use it to understand why certain things are happening. So this slide shows if two officers go to a a call and it ends up in a force event and officer one uses a takedown and a type of a hand strike, that's two applications of force as we count it. The second officer delivers two strikes, so there's two more

48:42 applications of force for a total of four. It's one event, but there's four applications of force. And so if you look at some of the numbers, it looks like we have more force applications than we do force events, and that's accurate because we count each um each application of force by each each officer as well as each force option. Uh as we reported last year and we left it in this year, we continue to aggressively pursue trainings related to force. Um the slide breaks down uh the types of trainings that we put on in 2023 or sent officers to throughout 2023. And as you can see, de-escalation continues to be at the forefront of our training program. In

49:27 2023, we started leveraging new technologies to achieve that, um primarily a virtual reality training uh machine. Um this case, Apex is the the manufacturer and it is a immersive 3D um environment with goggles, headset, a backpack, and various force tools. And officers are able to stand in an empty room, but appear to be in any environment we dictate, whether it's a shopping mall, a apartment, on the street, wherever we want to put them, we can place them there and then an instructor operating computer in real time can interact with them with the characters in the program. They provide the audio and depending on the officer's actions and you know, whether it's what they say or where they move or how they handle the situation can dictate at the instructor's discretion how that

50:12 incident plays out. And we're able to put our officers in situations with this technology that are often been prohibitive both logistically or from a safety perspective with traditional training methods. All right. Now we're going down into the actual force that we used. Uh this is force types and both used and displayed. Um it's worth noting um that as an agency we have chosen to track even the lowest level of force. Um which up here is is the largest bar and that's that control hold category. There are agencies that don't even categorize that as a true use of force. Um as you can see it makes up the bulk of our our

50:58 force usage um and then followed by different displays of force. Um or the the bulk of them take downs is in there. But you've got to get several bars over before you reach an actual strike or discharge of a of a taser or a actual force tool. And I think that's important to notice again back to the the idea that we collect everything we can and then filter it later. Um you know, could we leave that out and would it lower our force numbers? Probably. Um but our goal is to see it all, understand it, fully explain it and use those numbers to shape shape how we're doing business, whether it's training, policy, or equipment.

51:44 So not only do we track the type of force, but then we take that next level deep dive um and this is where Lilly comes in, um, super valuable. But, we look at the effectiveness of each force, um, option. And, this is a carry-on, uh, model from prior years. Um, in in this slide here, you see 2023's force types, the number of time they were used, the effectiveness, and then a percentage of the time they were effective. And then, contrasted with both 2022 and 2021. Thing to remember when looking at at this slide, um, the percentages are generally the same as far as effectiveness goes overall. Um, certain force options fail more than others, and those stay relatively consistent. The percentages may fluctuate, um, but I'd point out specifically to the Presidia Gel, uh, discharge line.

52:31 Had two uses in 2023. Two of those were effective for a 100% success rate. No tool is 100% effective throughout time. Eventually, there'll be a failure. But, if you look to 2022 during our trial phase of the Presidia Gel, uh, it had a 25% effectiveness rate. What's important to see and and understand with just with this chart and the entire report is some of the numbers are so small that a change of one or two in either direction will change that percentage significantly. And so, if you see see a number, uh, percentage, or bar jet graph that is completely different than the prior year, look at the actual numbers cuz if it's just, you know, it goes from one to two, we've doubled it, but really the number hasn't changed significantly.

53:17 It's one of the pitfalls of having limited data sets. And so, hopefully over the years, we'll see a broader picture, um, of those types of data and get a better picture of of all of those types of things. So, this is by far my favorite slide both of the presentation um, and of the report itself. And there's a lot of numbers here and it breaks it down both 2023, 2022 and 2021. I want to point out just a few of the of the categories on here. The first one is called calls for service. If you look across that top line just under the years, uh 2023 was 49,000

54:03 27. It's right around that 50,000 mark and those are total calls that we received whether we go on them, it's handled at the records level, you know, it's just you know, traffic directions, the street closed, those types of calls. They may not generate police calls or police dispatched um dispatched police officers. So, that's has remained relatively consistent over the last 3 years. But, that next line down is where I start to to pay attention. If you look at it, it's police dispatched calls for service and those are calls that come in that our officers are actually going to. Somebody needs help, um traffic stop, anything that our officers go out and do is captured on that next line there highlighted in blue. If you look at 2023, there's 31,119 police dispatched calls for service. I

54:49 referenced that in in the start of this. And so, with that in 2023, our officers responded to 1,688 more calls than the prior year. They made 175 more arrests all with all with 21 fewer use of force events. All those numbers are captured on that on that slide and then additional um percentages of calls for service and they all remain kind of in line with that decreasing trend um noted in some of the percentages and the numbers in general. That's where I get back to that we did more while using less. So, we track subject injuries as part of our force tracking

55:35 uh input and the Blue team IA Pro system. This is a change for this year and all the change is subtle but I think important to talk about and point out. We changed the injury type and rather than trying to describe the injury with our best description of it or um a medical diagnosis or something that could be confused with a medical diagnosis. We have changed it to the treatment required um and the level of treatment that the individual received as a result of the force. I'll use the example of a laceration and the medical definition of a laceration can range from you know, a small cut that requires a band-aid all the way up to you know, stitches, staples, those types of injuries. And so just to list laceration in this report doesn't present a full

56:21 picture of how bad the injury actually is where noting the kind of treatment they received paints a good picture. Um if we look at this this chart, you'll see that 24 um individuals received a minor injury with treatment required and that's washing of a wound, bandaging a wound, um you know, still relatively minor types of injuries. Those lacerations or abrasions from the previous report. Then you get into minor injury with no treatment required or they were okay enough that they declined any kind of treatment. And that's again the majority of our force events require you know, no no treatment or they decline any kind of of of intervention. And then you get into the more serious types of um of injuries or treatment associated with those injuries. Um it means to the hospital as a result

57:06 of the force used. Um in 2023 there were none and then the last category there is is causing a death and we had none in 2023. And again, those paint a much more clearer up front picture of what actually is happening as the result of the force than trying to understand, you know, what the laceration actually looked like or what it meant. We've kept officer injuries in um but we kept it with the old injury classification. We kind of went back and forth on on which was better, but in effort to maintain some privacy for our officers and individuals, as well as our ability to see their injury status long-term through various workman's compensation programs, risk management stuff through HR. We have a

57:52 very good understanding of of the nature of the injury, and so leaving leaving that in there is um more indicative on the officer side we thought as far as you know, they suffer abrasions, small lacerations are the might majority of the injuries we receive followed by you know, the pain, bruising, internal injuries. Um On most of these, if not all of these, you'd have one or two incidents where there's any kind of treatment rendered, and it'd be pretty easy probably to figure out or sort which event that came out of. And so we wanted to highlight what our people were actually suffering as a result of attempting to use a force method that's outlined there on the the the right side of the graph or chart.

58:43 So, on this one we take year-over-year '21, '22, and '23 and outline the force type by year. And in this one, we're using it to try to identify trends or outliers. If something unexpected is revealed in the data, we deep we take a deeper dive into that and try to understand why there's this anomaly. I'll point to the canine display uh section, and you look over those 3 years, there was a clear spike in 2022. Sergeant Massey spoke to that last year in this presentation where our canine unit got back to full strength, so we had more dogs on the street than we did in the year before. Logic would say that that there's more dogs on the street, they're displayed more often, and that spike makes sense. You look at 2023 and it drops back down almost to the 2021

59:29 uh year and and so we didn't lose a dog team but our dog team is starting to age and as the dogs get older their handlers are more selective as to when they are out and so they've kind of cut back their workload a little bit to prolong their working life. So we can explain and there's logical explanations to that spike in 2022 and now we're kind of settling back into the the expected average. But sticking with the canine section if you go over several rows to the canine bite 2021 was low and then 22 and 23 is the same. So it shows that that that disparity there's a reason for it that's consistent and then we get to the next two years with full teams and we have the same number.

1:00:16 Brings us to last year 2022 recommendations and I was going to talk about all of these but Lilly did the vast majority of the work on these and and the data analysis side of it to look at it from that perspective so she's going to speak to both last year's recommendations and the forthcoming 2023 recommendations. All right so the first recommendation from 2022 revolved around uses of force and police officer holds. We discovered that the percentage of police officer holds resulting in use of force was nearly two times greater than the percentage of regular arrests resulting in use of force. So our goal was to determine if there were any factors associated with uses of force and police officer holds. And so we looked at POHs and non-POHs over four years and looking at that data

1:01:03 we kind of realized that subjects who had force used on them during a police officer hold were more likely to have been in some sort of active physical dispute prior to or during police arrival they were involved in a use of force situation in another police incident prior to the current one and or they were taking active steps towards hurting themselves or another person and then overall lesser force options were used so control holds takedowns no discharges of weapons were used to take POH people into custody and then fewer people were injured overall in comparison with the non POH regular arrest. Our second

1:01:49 recommendation refers to the other options in blue team. So if an officer has a use of force or a subject resistance that does not currently fit in with what's already in the system they're able to make a recommendation for things that we can add and so in response to officer input and control tactics input we added several options to subject resistances such as prevent driving escape prevent injury and we further broke down some of the force options we had so what would have been previously categorized solely as a leg or a hand strike has been broken down into kick punch knee strike more specific options to kind of give us an idea of what specifically officers are using and if there are any

1:02:35 training needs to address those specific uses of force. Our third recommendation revolved around finding an objective way to track de-escalation. Use of force is a relatively straightforward thing to track it it either happened or it didn't however de-escalation especially those near miss situations where force may might have been used or would have been used if officers did not pursue some sort of de-escalation tactic those are much more difficult to track and so we looked at several metrics and most of them did not provide us with enough good data to really make a comparison or draw any conclusions However, the big takeaway from this piece um is that officers did spend

1:03:23 longer taking use of force taking people into custody during a use of force event. They also spent about twice as long caring for them and lodging them after the use of force event took place. Our final recommendation from 2022 revolved around the taser discharge and presidia gel effectiveness. Uh so historically those two force options are were not rated as being the most effective. Um in 2023 presidia gel was adopted and trained department-wide. We only had the two uses and they were both uh rated as effective. Um and taser discharges they were slightly more effective in 2023 compared with 2022. Um however, they are continually

1:04:10 monitored for uh trends and potential training needs. So, next one. Uh so for this year we identified three recommendations. Uh the first one being uh there is a new de-escalation uh tracking data entry option in Blue Team. So the software now has an option for officers to describe what de-escalation tactics they employed during a use of use of force situation. Uh this won't catch those near misses. So it it's still is focused on um just use of force. It's not going to help us uh track situations where force might have been used or would have been used um if the outcome was different. Um however, I am hoping to use the

1:04:57 information that we get from this new data element um in conjunction with what we used for last year's uh appendix three recommendation uh to continually monitor and track de-escalation and figure out if we can um track that and make adjustments as needed. Our second recommendation uh revolves around the review process for a uses and shows of force. In the past, all uses and shows of force were reviewed at both the watch commander level and the patrol the patrol lieutenant level. And moving forward, uses or shows of force and very low-level uses of force such as control holds um that are within policy at the sergeant level will be moved straight to

1:05:42 the database. Any use of force event that um results in injury, that uh is not within policy or raises a policy question, or rises to a higher level of force will still go through that same uh that same review process of watch commander, patrol lieutenant, and then other additional command staff as needed. And we're doing this because uh in the past over half of our force options used have either been show of force or low-level uses of force like control holds. And everything that has been found to be within policy at the sergeant level has been found to be within policy and no problem at the lieutenant level. Uh our third and final recommendation, uh this is more of an under the hood process. Um

1:06:27 we're streamline streamlining the use of force entry process. In the past uh uses of force and shows of force were tracked in these separate modules. So, officers kind of had to do two if they used both. And this complicated the analysis process and created some confusion, especially for officers who were involved in uh complex and dynamic use of force situations. And so, this changes nothing with how force is counted or shown in the report. It's mostly just a streamline process for uh data entry. So, with those recommendations for 2023, that concludes the presentation we have. Um, we're open for any questions, comments, suggestions for on this report or for future years.

1:07:12 Nope. Should I say that again on the mic? There we go. Yeah, what I said. Uh, so with that, that concludes the presentation uh that we have for you this year uh for the 2023 use of force report. Um, we're open for any questions, comments, suggestions either on this report or for future reports. We'd love to hear those and either speak to them or take note to bring them back to you next year. All right, council, any questions? Um, Beth and then we'll come back to Joe. I don't really have a question, but a uh comment. Appears that your uh de-escalation tactics and training seem to be working. Um, with the fact that your arrests have went up, but your use of force have went down, so kudos to that. Thank you for this report. It's so so much information is packed into it,

1:07:57 and I think it adds to the transparency of the department. And last year when I was appointed, this was the first Yeah, yeah, my first day, this was a the first meeting that I had. So, just there's that. Thank you. Okay. Joe, and then we'll go to Corey. Thank you very much. I really appreciate the work that you put into it. I know it's a ton of work. And I think that the citizens or the community deserves that your uh your work product. And it is clearly illustrates to me that there is a a trend in which is so the way in which we want our department to go in this community. And so uh my recommendations are to everyone in our department and with the leadership

1:08:43 on down. So, please if you would express that to staff, I'd appreciate it. Absolutely. Corey. Thank you. Um, and I have a some things to say and then I have a couple of just questions or things to think about for future. Um, one, thank you very much for this. In my time on council, this has been a primary thing that we've all been focusing on from before I was on council on the budget committee fighting for for body cams. And I very much appreciate seeing some of the things that I've been bringing up about let's make sure we're tracking gender, let's make sure we're tracking race and things like that. Along with the training, it's great to see the training and the anti-bias training and just keep it up. Like

1:09:28 I agree with Council Pichardo that we're moving in the right direction. And I just want to poke around a little bit. And this is not in the the slide, but it's in the documents that you sent on page six of attachment one. I'm looking at the racial data of the subjects. And one and I might have said this in previous years, so I'm just going to say it out loud again. In terms of folks who are who are being recorded as as black as their race is black. The the percentage of subjects that we see in there is quite a bit higher than our population. So it's a thing to think about and maybe you all are thinking about it. We have less than 2% black people in Springfield and yet we're looking at like 9.5% in terms of that.

1:10:13 And then there was a big leap which I'm curious about and maybe you have answers and maybe you don't. There's a bit of a leap in terms of the Hispanic folks who are the use of force subjects went from like six and 3.6% in 2022 to 14 and over 10%. So those are the things that I'm like, what's going on there? And maybe you know and maybe you don't. Sure, I could speak to I can speak to to part of it. And this gets back to and I mentioned it in the the presentation where some of the numbers, you know, change by just a couple and the percentages go crazy one way or the other. I'll point to the the race identification as black as an example. The percentage increased, but that's a result of our force decreasing and the same number of

1:10:59 individuals in both years of 13. And so that the percentage is still higher than than the demographics. There's there's no disputing that, but it's not a a significant change year to year and that it was still 13 people. Um and so that percentage kind of slides accordingly and with less force used the percentages all of them kind of tick up a little bit um on that one. Um and then again almost the same thing with the the Hispanic. This is where our number set fortunately is low and so any change of just a handful, you know, eight eight people change the numbers significantly um even though the entire set of of of involved individuals is still relatively low. Um that's where year to year and we got to look at it and kind of zoom out to see those those trends. We're certainly tracking them absolutely. Thank you.

1:11:49 Any Anybody else? Michelle? Yeah, I'd just like to thank you. Um this transparency is great and every year you you come with even more transparency and I appreciate the thought that you're all putting into making the data relevant and helping us really understand um the improvements that have been happening in the police department. I just want to congratulate you. I the numbers are going in the right direction. So nice job. Yep. All right. Um I've got a couple of questions and then a couple of comments. If you're the public, where are we storing this report for them to read? We have an open data tab on the SPD website and we put all these reports and other documents there as well. So this is all publicly publicly accessible and we put it live I think last Thursday. And and that's the same place that the

1:12:34 that the handout um the one-page info Yeah. Yeah. Oh, perfect. Perfect. The other question I had from a from an analysis perspective, you added a heat map this year. Um can you give maybe give some thoughts about it or an example of where how it's been useful in day-to-day police operations? I can probably speak to that a little bit. You know, from you know, supervisor line level, you know, patrol watch commander perspective, you know, if it's predictable, preventable maybe. And looking at that and again it's just more numbers the better. And if you know there's an area for whatever reason that's that's hot on the heat map where there's a spike, whether it's a neighborhood, apartment complex, whatever the the geographical location might be, having a knowledge of that location

1:13:19 can dictate tactics, equipment we take, you know, an extra officer so there's three instead of two if we know there's a high likelihood of of a force event occurring at at any given location. And then just to contrast and some of it's for for you all in your respective, you know, wards inside the city, knowing an idea of what's going on, you know, where you're elected to represent, we think there's some added value in that. And one of the other questions I had, there was a chart in there that really showed median use of force versus average use of force by officer. And again, I know a lot of things go into that and I, you know, and I know that there's some employment issue. Are you guys digging into that a little bit deeper? Yeah, absolutely. Professional Standards provides

1:14:04 quarterly to our division commanders the use of force trends. So we don't just wait to the end of the year to compile this period report. Throughout the year, the division commanders are getting information about what's happening in their division. If there are outliers, that is specifically what's talked about so we can look at the outliers, what's going on. We look into the different um types of incidents they were involved in. Maybe they were busy, maybe they worked twice as many hours as everybody else and so they were involved in twice as many incidents. Um but we we check that throughout the year. All right, Joe. Oh, yeah. Joe Lowery. Can I add to that? Um I would like to say that we did when it comes to the average and the median for this particular number, we did have 11 new sworn personnel come on board in

1:14:51 2023, and that significantly dragged that average down. So, I think that might also contribute to that difference between the four and the two. Okay, Joe, and then I think Nancy had a comment. Uh thank you very much. So, this is a little bit off the wall, but I am curious. There's a a significant amount of analysis, obviously, a huge amount. And has it been helpful for actually in your job as professional standards and yours as the chief, has it been helpful at all to uh make you aware or some individual perking up percolating up to where they may need extra training? Is

1:15:36 it Was it useful for that as a tool to identify where training may be needed needed individually as opposed to group? Uh it's I would say it certainly doesn't hurt that. Um I think where there's already there was already an awareness I mean through supervision that's part of the job to be aware of what's happening and what your people are doing. But to, you know, quantify the numbers, you know, as a department um and then focus in more narrowly if we need to. But being able to, you know, put the data behind it so it's not just a feeling um and actually have hard data behind whether it's an individual or department-wide. And they're without getting too far into it, they're fairly consistent between the two groups. Individuals are fairly consistent with kind of the department

1:16:21 average. There's always some fluctuation, but there's not a giant discrepancy there. I was looking at this the software whatnot is is really finite and and I'm hopeful that and I'm not sure if it's even possible to not as a not as a hammer down anything, but but as a tool in which you can use for individuals that percolates to the top, but also if it has to be something where it goes to stepping further up the disciplinary chain or the the you know what I mean, escalation of of discipline to where this investment in this software has become useful to the city in regards to potentially reduce liability in handling discipline situations.

1:17:06 Um has it been useful in that area? And and again, I'm not trying to get specific and I you know, I understand that and I and I honor that, but I think where I think where this is all been useful, maybe not so much the analysis, but the systems we put in place is the review of every single incident. So, as incidents go up the chain, if there's a particular incident that um the command staff determines might have been out of policy, then we figure out how we're going to address that. If something escalates to the level of needing some kind of disciplinary action, we can do that, but most often it's non-disciplinary corrective action, additional training, discussions to find out why might somebody's more reliant on one type of force than another and that's kind of their default go-to. Maybe somebody's always, you know, they they always pull out their taser way more than everybody else. We want to talk to them like, why why do you need additional training with some of our control tactics or presidio

1:17:52 or whatever it is. So, most often it's to to modify that behavior at a low level and not just leap to discipline, but if we need to do that, we can if it's an egregious violation. Right, and that's what I'm getting at. It seems like it would just be a perfect tool for that. So, thank you very much. Nancy. Thank you, Mayor Council. Um thank you, Chief Shera, and I want to acknowledge um all of the hard work that went into putting this together. Um as someone who has done a lot of work in statistics at the graduate school level, um it's important to understand the data and the sample size really does come into play here. And you know, I think that this report continues to improve,

1:18:37 continues to get more detailed. You know, I I would like to and and I talked with this uh with the chief about this a little bit. Um I think it would be helpful in future reports to talk a little bit about data collection and and sample size and why and how that reflects in in the numbers the people are seeing and how, you know, um when you have a small sample, it can it can really skew because not everybody you'll just look at a straight percentage and make um you know, an assumption that may or may not uh correct be correct. So, um part of that is what is the the data telling you and then what is the data not telling you. Um and so really looking at um all of the potential factors that may be coming into play um on outliers in your data

1:19:23 set. Um so, that's kind of thing one. Uh but I just really do want to uh commend all of you um for um using the technology, um being very thorough in how you use it and apply it, and also just um embracing that culture of of um performance improvement um and I and also de-escalation because not only does it keep our community safe, but it also keeps our officers safe and that's that's what we want as well. So, I really do appreciate all of you. Thank you. Thank you. So, um to wrap up, I keep thinking about uh about 2020, the first time we did this report, and I can't remember if that was um a single sheet Excel document or that was the year that

1:20:08 somebody went through all the reports one by one. And it makes me really just consider how that we probably undercounted that year because we had to do so much manual collection, and it just shows how far as a department that I think we've come. Um the other thing that really stands out to me is uh I was really also looking at the just the amount of work that got done, right? So, it's not only are we seeing a reduction in the uses of force, but we're also seeing you know uptick in the amount of work that people are getting done. And the report is very transparent and you know, it's been it's been an investment in an outcome. Like that the thing's an outcome of a lot of hard work that the PD's done the last couple of years and I really do commend you for that. I think we're really happy to see it. So, thank you.

1:20:53 Thank you. And just one last thing again to kind of echo that, the fact that we arrested more people, I think it shows that SPD is focused on holding people accountable that are making Springfield unsafe, victimizing them. We are not shying away from that. We are arresting people, but we're doing it in a little bit different manner. And that well, the trend I think we're on our third year of a downward trend of the the frequency of force. That's not going to continue forever. Not going to get down to a point of zero where nobody ever uses force ever. That's not realistic. So, well, we're going in a good direction and things are going really well. We can't fool ourselves to think it's just going to go down to zero. At some point it's going to kind of level out because that's just the nature of the business. And well, and Chief, the thing that always sticks out in these reports to me is that as a department you're being constructively dissatisfied, right? So,

1:21:38 it's sort of like, hey, there's good good trends in some of this and what else can we do? So, thank you. Thank you. All right. That was the last item for the work session. We're going to adjourn until 7:00 and I think we've got an executive session next. We're on an executive session link, so it'll be 7:00. Thank you.