The city and members of the Casper Police Department are at odds over a report questioning staffing levels and salaries for officers.

More policemen are needed to lower the city's crime rate and higher salaries and benefits will make the department more attractive to job seekers, according to the Casper lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police.

"Our city just deserves to have better than what it does now," said Casper police officer Scott Jones, president to the Casper lodge of the FOP.

City and police officials, however, dispute many of the statistics offered in the report. Police Chief Tom Pagel says figures in the report are distortions that paint an unfair picture of the department.

"I'm frustrated by the whole thing," Pagel said. "It's just not being represented correctly."

The debate centers on the Community Safety Need Assessment, an 18-page document that proposes increasing police pay and the size of the force and reducing the city's crime rate to the statewide average by 2010.

The Casper Fraternal Order of Police, which is not a union, is voluntary and not all sworn Casper police officers are members. A separate lodge represents officers in other Natrona County law enforcement agencies.

The Casper FOP advocates for the needs of its roughly 50 members, Jones said. The assessment is based on feedback the group's leaders received from its membership.

"We are trying to have an open dialogue," he said.

Staffing

Generally speaking, the Casper Police Department is authorized to hire 98 sworn officers. Right now, the department's authorized strength - which doesn't necessarily reflect the actual number of officers on the force at any one time - is up to 103, in anticipation of several retirements.

Jones would like to see an authorized strength of more than 120 sworn officers. Doing that, he contends, will address a city crime rate that ranks highest in Wyoming, according to a state report. Jones believes a staffing increase will also allow officers to be proactive, rather than just taking calls.

"Just to say it quite simply, our guys are tired," he said. "What our job is these days is reactive."

In its assessment, the group cites figures from the state's annual crime report showing Casper with 1.6 officers per 1,000 residents - one of the lower ratios in the state. The group has proposed increasing that number to 2.3 by 2010.

"What's happening … is our responsibilities are expanding," he said. "So we need more players to do an effective job of getting these things under control."

Pagel takes issue with those numbers. He says the 1.6 figure was calculated using the number of officers on the force at the lowest point last year, rather than the department's authorized strength. Twelve officers left the department last year for a variety of reasons, from military assignments to new careers.

"The numbers they've chosen to use or the manner they've chosen to use them is distorted," he said.

Pagel says his department actually has a ratio of about 1.9 officers per 1,000 residents - about the same as Cheyenne. He also says statistics show Cheyenne's crime rate is growing much faster than Casper's.

The chief disputes the idea that officers don't have time to do anything but answer calls. To make his case, he pointed to the department's annual report, which shows officers spend 21 percent of their shifts on patrol and stopped more than 14,000 cars last year.

"If you were so busy you were going from call to call, you wouldn't be stopping cars," he said.

Jones says his numbers come from a state report compiled by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation.

"I invite scrutiny of these numbers," he said.

Response times

Another issue of disagreement is police response times. On emergency in progress calls, the average police response time is about nine minutes, Jones said. More officers in the community, he argues, would lower that.

"We do not have the players to be able to effectively and efficiently get this crime under control," he said.

Jones said he got the nine-minute figure from the chief.

Pagel, however, said police response times are lower. In June, for example, it took officers seven minutes to arrive at priority one calls, according to documents he provided to the Star-Tribune. For January, that figure stood at about six minutes.

"I have a tremendous number of officers down here that do an exceptional job," Pagel said.

Police pay

Besides its staffing recommendations, the assessment suggests Casper police should be paid at the 75th percentile of the five highest paid law enforcement agencies in the state. That, according to the report, would require increases of 15 to 21 percent, depending on rank.

According to the Jones, Casper police officers rank near the bottom of large Wyoming departments in terms of salary and benefits. Improving those, he said, will help recruit quality officers and make the department more competitive in the law enforcement job market.

"We are worth being at the top of the job market for the state of Wyoming because of what we have to deal with," he said.

Casper officials question the validity of the salary figures in the report. City Manager Tom Forslund says the report compared Casper salaries as they were at the time to projected salaries in other communities.

"I don't think we are comparing apples to apples here," he said.

The city recently upped the pay of all of its employees, including police, by 6.5 percent, and Pagel said he's irritated with the perception that the council isn't taking care of his department.

"That's not true," he said.

Meeting request

In May, the Casper FOP asked to meet with the Casper City Counsel at a work session to discuss the assessment. With two exceptions, the council voted against the meeting.

From Mayor Paul Bertoglio's perspective, the group was raising personnel issues that should have been directed to Pagel.

"They need to go up the proper chain of command," Bertoglio said. "We are not personnel managers."

Meeting with the FOP would have also opened the door for other employee groups to meet with the counsel, he added.

"We are only trying to be fair," he said.

Council members Maury Daubin and Kenyne Schlager - who both have ties to the Casper police department - did meet the with FOP on their own.

"I think public safety is probably the most important thing city government does," said Daubin, a retired Casper police lieutenant and FOP member. "If we have a situation here where we aren't getting the whole story, we should talk to everybody involved to find out what's going on."

Daubin said the department seems to be understaffed. He'd also like to know whether job satisfaction or pay are reasons officers have left.

Regardless of the council's decision, the issue of officer pay may resurface within the next year, when the city conducts a salary survey for all its employees. Whether that will ultimately resolve some of the differences between the FOP and city officials remains to be seen.

Reach crime reporter Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@trib.com.