MCRPD officer-in-charge suggests areas of reduction

YEAGERTOWN - The Lewistown Borough Council's decision to reduce service with Mifflin County Regional Police once again dominated the discussion of the board of directors meeting on Thursday evening.

The board of directors, many of whom have concerns of what the reductions will mean for the department's budget, are in the beginning stages of formulating a budget for 2010. At the board's meeting in August, they voted to extend the date for all municipalities to decide the number of units of services they would purchase for the year 2010 from Aug. 15 to Oct. 22, allowing municipalities like Lewistown Borough to reconsider its decision to buy less units of service.

In response to talks regarding service cuts, Officer-in-charge Sgt. Michael Moyle, presented the board with his recommendations of areas in which the department could reduce response and save the municipalities on service.

"There are a lot of theft calls that have occurred over the year ... basically people will call in all these thefts and complaints about their cars and there is not a lot you can do with them," Moyle said. "Some of them call in about a cell phone or something stolen out of their car and you wait and wait for them call back with the serial number of the phone and they never do so it's an untraceable theft."

Moyle said that from Jan. 1, 1999, to the present, officers have responded to 686 minor thefts, where each of the items stolen were valued at less than $250. Moyle said he estimates that at each one of those calls, an officer spent at least 15 minutes dealing with the situation, which amounts to over 11 units of time spent on minor theft incidents.

"All I am trying to do is make you get an understanding of how you may want to approach this to get a better use of your time," Moyle said.

Moyle also said that officers spend a lot of time on minor harassment calls as well. From Jan. 1, 1999, to the present, officers have responded to 5,691 harassment calls and with an estimated 15 minutes at each call, that adds up to 142 units of time spent on harassment incidents.

"The clearance rate on those is really low because it's a lot of people saying someone looked at them wrong or gave them the bird from across the street," Moyle said. The board opted to refer review of Moyle's suggestions to a committee.

Mike Reed, Armagh Township's representative on the board, suggested the board consider adopting a new policy, which would require each municipality that utilizes more service than it purchased to pay for the extra service at the end of each month.

"I don't want to have to wait until the end of year and then try and get the money," Reed said.

Other members of the board agreed that Reed's suggestion was something they also wanted to discuss. The board opted to continue that discussion next week in executive session as it pertains to the department's budget.

The board regularly meets at 5:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at MCRPD headquarters in Yeagertown.