TOMS RIVER, NJ (OP ED) – Toms River Mayor Dan Rodrick sent a letter to residents of Toms River over the weekend. In the letter he outlined his reasons for hiring eight new police department EMTs and why he chose that expansion of the department over the promotions of officers in light of retirements of two captains:
Fellow Residents,
As you may have read in the newspaper, there is an emergency medical response crisis in Toms River. Residents have been waiting up to 30 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. It’s unacceptable!
A rapid response is the difference between life and death. My administration has taken immediate action. We will be hiring 8 new emergency medical officers to man our police ambulances. This will put another ambulance on the road around the clock – 24 hours a day – 7 days a week – 365 days a year. The council approved my resolution to appoint these eight additional first responders and we will be adding these positions to the police department without any increase in taxes. In the coming months, two captains with management desk jobs will be retiring.
Each of these captains salaries are $242,000 dollars a year. With pension and benefits – these two positions are costing us $700,000 a year. By not backfilling these desk jobs, the township will have the money it needs to put more boots on the ground. This will enable us to effectively respond to emergency medical calls – decreasing response time – and saving lives! Due to the fiscal mismanagement of my predecessor, the township is facing a $3.5 Million dollar shortfall. Still, we need more emergency medical re sponders. It’s a matter of life and death.
The prior mayor and chief of police had 4 years to fix this crisis, but they did not. We are fixing it! Some of the Department’s top brass are upset that we will not be backfilling these retirements in management – because their colleagues will not be getting a promotion. Their management union is fighting our plan to fix this emergency response crisis. They are purposefully mischaracterizing this as taking cops off the street.
Nothing could be further from the truth. We added 7 new cops in my first week in office. Currently there are 31 people in management positions at the department overseeing 112 police officers. That’s one supervisor for every three cops. These 31 members of the department’s top brass are costing the township over $9 Million a year.
That’s an average of $300,000 dollars a year – per person. We need more boots on the ground, not two more $350,000 a year management positions. The number of patrol officers is not decreasing. It’s incre asing. Again, we ’ re adding 8 emergency medical response officers and I just signed off on 7 new patrolmen.
We are paying for all of this by not backfilling just 2 retirements. Our police department should be restructured to increase the number of patrolmen and emergency medical officers .
We don’ t need additional management. We need more boots on the ground – and that is just what we’re doing! If you would like to see just how out of control the cost of management is at the Toms River Police Department, I have included a copy of their salaries on the back side of this letter.
Respectfully, Daniel T. Rodrick Mayor – Toms River Township
The mayor’s letter included the salaries of management level officers in the department.
The contents of this article are not the views of Shore News Network and contain an op-ed provided by Mayor Dan Rodrick and the Township of Toms River.