Woodinville has eight dedicated officers, a police chief, Chief Kent Baxter; an administrative sergeant, Sgt. Scott Strathy; and six officers. They cover the city in three shifts, 24/7, with an emphasis on crime prevention.

Though these officers make up the Woodinville Police Department, they are also King County Sheriff’s Office employees. The City of Woodinville pays King County for their services.

As part of its contract for police services, the City of Woodinville has access to additional police resources from the county, available as needed, at any time. The contract allows the city the equivalent of 3.79 full time employees from the county.

These shared or flex services come in the form of supervision, investigations and clerical support, communications, fraud unit expertise, hostage negotiation, major accident investigation, major crimes and special assault investigation, SWAT teams and other resources as needed.

The city’s 2006 cost of base level police services paid to King County is about $1.6 million.

Eleven other cities contract with the Sheriff’s Office for services.

In each case, the city councils approve the contract, set local priorities, and determine the levels and types of services that the city will provide.

The question becomes: How does a city know the appropriate number of staff for its police department?

Most city councils use a variety of information to make staffing level decisions. They get input from the public; recommendations from the city manager, police chief and staff; use performance measures and benchmarks, and factor in budget realities.

They can consider officers per 1,000 residents, percent “available” time, officers needed for average response time, professional judgment, officer workloads, each methodology having advantages and disadvantages, said Rebecca Connelly of the Sheriff’s Office.

Under the contract, cities can opt to change their service levels or service mix at any time with a letter from the city manager.

Adding an officer costs $131,368 and includes all the tools necessary to do the job (salary, benefits, overtime, insurance, uniforms and equipment, vehicle, radio, precinct support, recruiting, hiring and standard training, police records, payroll, labor negotiations). But adding an officer can take up to nine months dependent upon how quickly the county can hire and train someone.

After the presentation, Mayor Cathy VonWald asked why the Sheriff’s Office would operate a storefront and what would make them take it away. She said she recalled that the Kingsgate area had a storefront years ago because of a local gang presence.

Chief Baxter said funding was most often the reason police station storefronts were closed down. He said up until recently, there was a storefront on the Woodinville-Duvall Road at Avondale.

Councilmember Chuck Price asked if the city had a need for an officer between noon and 8 p.m. and also wanted a school resource officer, would they have to wait nine months. He was told that nine months was the worst-case scenario.

The Sheriff’s Office hires every two months and they could put out notice to all experienced officers who might want the positions. Or, the city could pay overtime for a school resource officer. To get a drug dog for the high school, Chief Baxter said the fee was $168 for a two-hour minimum.

Councilmember Mike Roskind said that he knows the city police department is understaffed. He witnessed four crimes since he was elected. He saw a person try to sell a bike that was not his at a local sports store. He saw a felony hit and run on the Woodinville-Duvall Road where a non-city officer responded. He saw a reckless DUI, which had no response, and a large disturbance of juveniles, at which time the only city officer on duty was out of town booking another suspect.

He asked whether the City of Woodinville would be more likely to get a prosecution if the police were able to come in and witness the crime.

King County Sheriff’s Office Captain Jim Graddon said, “Yes.”

Councilman Scott Hageman asked to see the levels of reported crime in other cities.

Councilwoman Gina Leonard asked when the statistics for the last quarter of 2005 would be available. Graddon told her that they would work to expedite the report.

Leonard also asked whether the Woodinville High School principal had ever stated that she wanted another school resource officer. The school currently has one officer four hours a week.

Chief Baxter said that he had recently spoken with Principal Vicki Puckett and that she said she would like an officer at the high school five days a week, three hours a day. Baxter said an officer could do three hours at the high school and five hours with the city.

He also said that Leota Junior High was satisfied with its current arrangement, a resource officer four hours a week.

Leonard asked Chief Baxter to get the schools’ requests in writing.

The council’s teen representative Eric Tilden asked if the time spent on traffic control around the high school was time taken away from the school resource officer. The answer was no.

Councilman Don Brocha said there had been talk of having more canine drug searches at the high school. Woodinville High has two such searches a year.

Brocha said it would be better if the school asked the council for additional searches. Drug searches would be disruptive to teachers and students and he doesn’t want to impose the searches on the school unless they are requesting them.

Leonard said the police department’s number of drop-ins has increased. She wondered if the city could use a civilian to handle drop-ins, saying $50,000 would be a lot less than $131,368.

Councilman Hank Stecker asked if there was an advantage to using an officer on overtime.

He was told that even though overtime is time and a half, plus payroll taxes, using an officer on overtime all the time would cost less than $131,368 plus $65,684. He was also told that by using overtime, the city wouldn’t necessarily have the same officer.

Price said that he was concerned about drug use at the junior and senior high. “We have a duty to the community (to have school resource officers present),” he said.

The officers from the Contracts Unit said that they would supply the council with the additional information requested.

* Contract information was taken from the King County Sheriff’s Office Contracts Unit PowerPoint presentation given at the Feb. 13 city council meeting.