RAYTOWN'S LEADING NEWS SOURCE

BY GREG WALTERS

A Tale of Two Cities

The most common complaint we receive on the blog portion of the Raytown Report is the need for more patrol officers on the streets of Raytown. We wondered how Raytown stacks up to area cities in this regard.

The comparison below shows the current budgeted positions of uniformed officers in the Raytown and Grandview Police Departments. We chose Grandview as a comparison to Raytown because the demographics of the two cities are very similar. Raytown’s population has approximately 4,500 more souls that Grandview. Grandview has approximately five more square miles to patrol.

Both cities are inner ring suburbs of a major population center. Both cities are intersected by heavily traveled highways (350 in Raytown / 71 in Grandview). Both cities have the same number of uniformed officers on their respective payrolls. The salaries paid patrol officers are nearly identical, with a slightly higher hourly rate paid Raytown police officers.

The Numbers tell the Tale

Raytown has budgeted  18 patrol officers. While Grandview, with a budget that is a quarter of million dollars less than Raytown, has 24 patrol officers. Upon investigation we found that out of 36 uniformed officers in Raytown, fully one-half (18) of the personnel would be counted as command staff. By comparison, only 12 of the personnel in Grandview would fall under the title of command staff.

The following comparisons are current figures obtained from the Raytown and Grandview’s current budgets.  

CITY OF RAYTOWN                        CITY OF GRANDVIEW

Population: 29,510                           Population: 24,955

Land area:  9.93 square miles         Land Area: 16 square miles

POLICE                                             POLICE 

Budgeted $5.7 million dollars       Budgeted $5.456 million dollars

Chief of Police..........1                      Chief of Police..........1             

Majors .......................1                      Majors....................... 0

Captains....................3                      Captains ................... 2

Crime Analyst .......... 1                     Crime Analyst ............0

Sergeants................. 6                     Sergeants ................. 6

Detectives.................6                      Detectives .................3

Patrolmen................18                      Patrolmen..................24

TOTAL ....................36                    TOTAL ......................36

Paul's Rant . . .

IS THERE A BETTER WAY?

A quick check of the numbers shown in the data above indicates a one to one ratio of patrol officers to command staff in Raytown. The Grandview Police Department has more patrolmen because they do not have as many detectives, two less command officers (captain and above) and, does not employ a crime analyst.

A debate has been raging on the Raytown Report blog over whether or not to double the property tax to bring more dollars of support to the police department.Is there a better way to bring more patrol officers to a community?

Apparently Grandview has found a way to do so. And it is important to note, they have done with a quarter of a million less dollars.

The questions remains . . . Why not Raytown? 

Information compiled from budget records of Raytown and Grandview.

2 Cent Gasoline Tax

THE OTHER TAX ON THE AUGUST BALLOT

Most of the attention and debate on the has focused on the proposed doubling of the Property Tax from 50 cents to $1.00.

There is, however, another tax increase on the August 2018 ballot.

The gasoline tax would increase the price of gasoline by 2 cents gallon.

•  All proceeds from the tax, by state law, can only be used for street improvements.

• There is not any sunset on the tax. Once it is approved, it will remain a permanent tax.

• Passage requires a majority of voters casting ballots approve the tax.

The tax is a relatively new tax. Only two cities in Missouri have approved the gasoline tax. One is Peculiar, Missouri, which has a two cent tax on all gasoline sold in its city. The other is Charleston, Missouri, which imposes a 1 cent sales tax on gasoline sales.

To leave a comment use this link POST A COMMENT