POLICE COSTS FOR EVENTS GOING UP; OVERTIME POLICY CHANGE IN EFFECT

Police protection at special events can be costly.

As a result of a change in the city's overtime policy, Cape Girardeau may begin charging special event organizers more money for added police protection at their events. Some organizers fear the cost may rise so much that it will become a hardship on the organizations and the events.

Presently, the city charges organizations for police protection if their special events require extra manhours and overtime for the police department. The two largest events that require the additional policemen are the SEMO District Fair and Riverfest.

The practice of charging organizations for police presence at the events has been in place for years. But this year a change in how the city figures overtime may increase the cost to the organizations.

Tim Hahn, chairman of this year's Riverfest, said Wednesday that changes in overtime policy in the police department may have an impact on the integrity of the event and result in a less visible police presence.

When Riverfest organizers were told the city might charge a great deal more this year, Hahn said his initial reaction was that Riverfest would not be able to have police in the downtown area because the organization would not be able to afford it.

"People guess that we have deep pockets, but we don't," Hahn said.

Jerra Hutson, president of the Riverfest organization, questioned the whole concept of the city asking an organization to foot the bill for police. "Do we have to pay for something that taxes pay for already?" she asked.

But both Hahn and Hutson recognized the importance of having police at the event. Hahn called the police presence paramount to the event.

"We want to maintain the family atmosphere of Riverfest and can do that only with the police protection," he said.

But Chief Rick Hetzel said Wednesday that special events such as Riverfest cost the city in overtime pay to police officers. In the last fiscal year alone, the department paid over $150,000 in overtime, Hetzel said.

"It's only fair that organizations that sponsor the events should share in paying some of the money," he said.

Until the current fiscal year, the cost for added police protection was kept at a minimum because of a practice the department used to keep overtime pay as low as possible. The practice was known as "payback time."

Payback time allowed the department to not pay additional salary to police officers even if they worked overtime in a week. Officers would work 37 and one-half hours in a given week but would be paid for 40 hours. The extra two and one-half hours would be put into a "bank" of hours. By the end of 10 weeks, the officer would have 25 hours in the bank for which he was already paid but for which he had not yet worked.

Then, when the officer was needed to work extra hours at an event like Riverfest, the department would require him to work and would not pay him for the extra hours in the week. Instead, the department would draw on the hours that the police officer had accumulated in the bank of hours.

But the Fair Labor Standards Act says the practice of banking hours for payback time is not allowed. The city was required to change the practice, which it did July 1, 1997, with the beginning of the current fiscal year.

Currently, the department can't bank hours. If a police officer works more than 43 hours a week, he is entitled to overtime pay.

In the past, when the city was allowed to bank hours, the cost of added police protection for special events was minimal. In 1996, the Riverfest organizers were billed $216.17 by the city for 10 hours of overtime. But the city estimated that the actual cost for police presence at Riverfest that year was $3,870.44. In 1997, Riverfest organizers were charged $382 for 19 hours of police overtime.

Police Capt. Steve Strong said it is difficult to know exactly what the changes in overtime policy will mean to the cost of providing police protection at special events because this is the department's first year figuring costs under a new system. Because the final figure is contingent on many unknown costs, the best the department can do right now is give a scientific guess, Strong said.

He said the presence of the police at Riverfest helped promote a safer atmosphere for the event. An event like Riverfest attracts large crowds in a compacted area, and the idea behind police presence is to prevent anything illegal or dangerous from happening, he said.

"We want to take a proactive rather than reactive stance," he said.

Strong said he wasn't aware of any complaints from event organizers about the costs for police.

"We might get more complaints that they're not being billed for the entire thing," Strong said.