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3/1/2007
Police and fire commissions do great service - no need to break the system
Under current law, a police officer or firefighter may be disciplined, only with “just cause” and only by a police and fire commission – or similar board. The discipline order may be appealed to the circuit court – and after that the issue is done. Dead. Over.
Representative Garey Bies (R-Sister Bay) has once again introduced a bill (AB 57) that would allow emergency personnel to appeal a disciplinary measure through the collective bargaining process. Scott Herrick, who staffs Madison’s Police and Fire Commission, wrote an insightful opinion piece back in 2005 when this exact same bill was introduced. The bill ultimately passed the Assembly, but was not taken up in the Senate.
Attorney Herrick: “The Cliff’s Notes summary of AB 185/SB 82 is that it would allow local police and fire unions to bargain for arbitration after a police and fire commission imposes discipline.
“Current law….provides comprehensive due process protections. It took between six and 14 months …for cases of seven Madison firefighters involved in cocaine use to be resolved by the police and fire commission, not counting appeals. This wasn’t long enough?”
It's pointed out that most labor disputes can go to arbitration. Why not police and firefighters?
Again, Attorney Herrick: “The reason is that we place unique trust in our emergency personnel. These are the people who carry weapons, who use force under certain circumstances, who enter our homes, who save our lives - - and who sometimes arrest us.
“It is a special bond…We would be wrong to undermine the cornerstone that holds up both ends of the social contract between citizen and those who serve and protect us: our police and fire commissions.”
Scott Herrick believes the system is not broken and we need not add a grievance procedure to police and firefighter disciplinary procedures. We need not add one iota of a possibility that politics will play a part in disciplining critical public safety servants.
Surely police and fire commissioners are members of an underappreciated, unheralded legion of public servants. They are unpaid members of the community who dig in and perform a tightly scripted (by the statutes) but critical role of administration and oversight.
Now… not only has Representative Bies introduced his bill once again in the current session, but lo and behold it showed up in Gov. Doyle’s budget (Section 1867, pp. 848, 849)! Where did I hear that the budget document would be just that, a budget document? Silly me….
To the Wisconsin Alliance of Cities, maintaining the current responsibilities of police and fire commissions is “very, very important.” Rich Eggleston, Communications Coordinator, believes it’s crucial to retain 100% citizen control of police and fire departments because “without that, citizens won’t retain confidence in government.”
Eggleston predicts AB 57 proponents will argue that county sheriff’s deputies are allowed to arbitrate a disciplinary action, so why shouldn’t police officers be accorded the same opportunity? He points out that sheriff’s deputies aren’t governed by a citizen commission and that a sheriff’s department is, pure and simple, a political agency, governed by an elected county board. Perhaps if county sheriffs were appointed (as police chiefs), and a Sheriff’s Commission took care of the hiring and disciplining (as a police and fire commission), county law enforcement would no longer be a political football.
As Scott Herrick concludes….”Let’s decide together if the current [commission] system is broken - - I don’t think it is - - then how best to fix it. We shouldn’t be asked instead to swallow an untested recipe for confusion, delay, new litigation and public expense.”
COMMENTS
Arbitrations cost thousands of dollars and take months. I am with you Jo.
Dale (Thu Mar 01 08:21:54 2007)
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