This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Feb. 22, 2011 - Changing control of St. Louis's police department from state to local hands is a significant alteration to current jurisdictional lines. A number of arguments, including those of M.W. Guzy, a former police officer, have been made against the change. One thing that should be remembered is that organizational arrangements are never neutral; they favor certain actors.
The state of Missouri has continued its control over these many years because its legislators and governors have enjoyed certain perquisites and support from the St. Louis Police Officers Association. A number of St. Louisans have campaigned to be selected as police board members by the governor because of prestige and such benefits such as cars and health insurance for life.
Under this arrangement, the police department has enjoyed considerable control over its budget. Before the Hancock amendment was passed by the voters in 1980, the state legislature set the police budget and the city had to pay the amount. Mayor Vince Schoemehl went to court and, using Hancock argued that the state could not impose cost mandates above the 1983 total. The court agreed.
Since then, anything above the 1983 budget amount for the police was thus subject to negotiation. If the police agreed to a cut, they would find where to take the cut, usually something the city administration liked.
Further, public safety is the pre-eminent concern of city residents. Yet, the officials they elect have little influence fiscally or operationally. The mayor may sit as one of the board of five but does not have the same access to information that he has on regular city departments. And do most citizens know who the other board members are or how to contact them?
Historically, the St. Louis department has been regarded as highly professional. Yet, despite its ostensibly apolitical position, it has been touched by the aura of scandal. Whether the questions involve excessive use of force, or the relationship to a certain tow lot, or a board member trying to influence treatment of his nephew, or the underreporting of rape, the department has not been immune from problems that affect police departments nationwide. But unlike every city in the United States (save Kansas City), the city administration cannot directly deal with these issues even though voters turn to them for answers.
To paraphrase an old adage of organization theory, police officers like what they like. They like what they know. No public bureaucracy welcomes change. And the St. Louis police department is no different; it would particularly dislike unsolicited change.
As in many organizations, rules and standard operating procedures affect behavior and provide comfort. In addition, bureaus at any level of government want autonomy. They wish to define their work environment and its tasks. This is particularly acute among police departments nationwide.
With justification, they aver that no one outside the department can understand the job they do and no one should be able to tell them how to perform it. It is a dangerous and gritty job, frequently dealing with the worst elements in society. It is a job many people would never tackle.
The nature of the job frequently causes officers to bond together. Joseph Wambaugh portrays these relationships in a number of his books dealing with officers in Los Angeles. The bonds can create internal trust and lead to distrust of outsiders. The issue of autonomy has been contentious from Los Angeles to New York City. Local control could cause problems with the autonomy that the St. Louis police currently enjoy. Yet those problems are worked through by every city and community that has local control.
This is where accountability comes in. Does local control politicize the force or make it more responsible? Does it inject politics or just shift politics from one level to another? Given the risks they must absorb, police officers are not overpaid. And they often suffer from wage compression if they remain in the same rank for a number of years. Thus, it is understandable that in a time of extreme fiscal stringency in the states and localities officers would fear the effect of change on salary, benefits and pensions.
Across the country, the Great Recession has played havoc with state and city budgets, making cuts the national norm. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police have so far been relatively immune but cannot be much longer. There is talk of layoffs or reduction in force. Certainly those who rely on public and private pensions are concerned about receiving the benefits they had planned on.
The bills in the Missouri legislature that would give the city its police department explicitly state that the pensions for retirees and those now on the force will not be altered. The future could be a question.
In other public bailiwicks, entities such as the Missouri university system are beginning to change from defined benefits to defined contributions for new employees. Beginning this year, employees have begun to contribute to their pension plan. This system is less advantageous to employees. And benefits such as pensions were developed for a reason. As David Brooks noted on the PBS Newshour, public salaries have generally been low but were balanced by very generous pensions to which they did not have to contribute. Under the local control bills, pensions are held inviolate. Defined contributions have not been broached.
Communities from Moberly to Springfield to Joplin to St. Joseph all face difficult fiscal problems. However, they include the police as part of their city government and can address fiscal and operational issues. Are local politics in St. Louis worse than those in other Missouri locales or in other cities nationwide? Politics is based on self-interest, group interest and the common good. That's also the case with state control. If state control of a city's police was such a wise idea, why hasn't any other state/city adopted such an arrangement?
Lana Stein is a professor emerita of political science at the University of Missouri at St. Louis.