The Haines Borough has received a draft of the $22,000 study of its police department, but the document won’t be released to the public until it can be scrubbed of certain details.
Manager David Sosa said he and interim police chief Robert Griffiths reviewed the draft, compiled by the Soldotna-based company Russell Consulting LLC.
“There were some items in there that talked to specific personnel actions, so the chief and I sat down and we sent a request back to Mr. Russell. There is some information that needs to come out before we can release the report,” Sosa said.
Sosa asked the assembly to schedule a Personnel Committee meeting to discuss the personnel issues noted in the draft report. He asked for that portion of the meeting to be held in executive session, as it relates to former employees and “could impact personnel issues if we did it in public.”
The draft was also sent to the Alaska Municipal League Joint Insurance Association for legal review.
Sosa sent the draft back with a request for “more clarity in some areas of the report to make it more understandable to the public.” He also asked Russell to prioritize from high to low a list of recommendations for action, as well as their accompanying impacts and costs. That information will allow the borough to weigh the three factors – priority, cost, impact – when moving forward, Sosa said.
“We want to be able to see that so we have more information on which to make our decisions on how we are going to prioritize things,” he said.
Assembly member Mike Case asked why the responsibility of making the recommendations and priorities fell on the consultant rather than Sosa. “(Russell) has gathered a bunch of data and arranged it in such a manner that you can make some evaluations, choices and recommendations. I just can’t understand why he would be setting the priorities rather than you,” Case said.
Sosa said the borough isn’t bound by the firm’s recommendations. “I think if we are paying someone a considerable amount of money, we should receive some feedback that would give us a bit more information that would help us to make decisions,” he said.
The personnel committee meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday. The committee consists of Joanne Waterman, Diana Lapham and Dave Berry.