Public safety agencies are the most important to audit. These agencies consume the largest share of many jurisdictions’ resources, and small improvements can result in big savings and might even save lives. However, these agencies have responsibilities and characteristics that make them the most challenging to audit.
To most people, public safety means police, fire, emergency medical, and 911 dispatch services. Public safety could also include jails, district attorneys, courts, and parole and probation services. It’s simply not possible to identify any useful generalities across all the public safety functions in all jurisdictions. In my time, I did research and planning in a law enforcement and corrections agency, and participated in audits of police, fire, jails, 911 operations, juvenile justice, probation, and courts. I’m going to focus on police, since I have the most experience with that service.
It can be a challenge to find the problems in policing; it can be even more difficult to get solutions. For an auditor, policing is a data-rich environment. The largest expenditure in the organization is patrol, tracked by computer-aided dispatch which captures immense amounts of workload and officer activity data. Detectives often use case-management software which provides similar data, along with crime clearances and arrests. Furthermore, every jurisdiction tracks community-level performance indicators like crime rates. Others, like Portland, track feelings of safety and victimization rates to better gauge crime impacts.
All this data can be overwhelming, so auditors should focus on the fundamentals: is the agency wisely managing its resources? Is it managing its workload? Is it producing good results?
In patrol, the majority of expenses are for staffing and overtime, and possibly compensatory time off. (These resources are interchangeable, so a proper balance to minimize cost and disruption is a possible audit, though complex.) Vehicles and equipment comprise a small amount of important resources as well.
In your scoping work you should ask how the agency allocates their personnel across time (hour of day, day of week) and across geographies (districts and precincts). You should ask how they manage scheduled absences such as training, vacations, and comp time, as well as sick leave and injury leave. If you don’t get answers that describe periodic, methodical allocation practices, then you need to probe further. You may hear of “minimum staffing” and it would be worthwhile to determine the level of data analysis that was used in determining those numbers.
Patrol workload is primarily response to dispatched calls and secondarily officers’ self-initiated activities (traffic stops, checking on suspicious activity, etc.) The first is generally mandatory, reactive workload and the other is proactive and discretionary, as time permits. Many agencies have adopted telephone report-taking for some incidents when the presence of a patrol officer is not necessary. You should ask how they track the workload across time and across geography, as well as by the incident type. If you don’t hear answers that inspire confidence in their management of workload, probe further.
A simple means of identifying deployment problem areas is to interview dispatchers from various shifts, as I did. Ask them what times of day they have the most difficulty finding an available officer to dispatch to an incident. Ask them where response times are a problem. Ask them what changes would make their jobs easier.
For patrol, consistent response times across the days and hours is a good indicator that management is obtaining optimal results for matching officers to workload. Additionally, the consistency of officer busy-time or availability are other indicators of a good matchup of resources to workload. Patterns in overtime and comp time spending may be indicators of mismatches. Look at overtime during hunting season—a clear signal that vacation leave isn’t managed well.
Some geographic areas are likely to show slower travel times due to terrain and street layouts. A more sophisticated, professional analysis of workload and geography could improve deployment practices, though that’s likely beyond the scope of an audit.
The same kind of audit inquiry will work for investigations, but the workload measures are more qualitative. The allocation of investigators among crimes and the tracking of investigator efforts will give some indication of resource management. The use of case handling software and methods will indicate workload management efforts. Arrests, clearances, and prosecutions are some indicators of results.
None of this analysis encroaches on the decisions of officers or investigators in performing their police work, yet it may spark resistance and even this: “What the hell do you know about police work to tell us how to do our business?”
You should answer that you are auditing fundamental management decisions. These underpin every type of organization, including management of police resources and workload. Alternately, they may thank you if you have identified a strategy for improving fleet services to eliminate the scarcity of patrol cars.
Regardless of the scope of your work, you need to be prepared with strong criteria. Public safety is not only data-rich, it is research-rich. Many national and professional organizations have produced standards and best-practices reports, and they provide technical advice to those who call. You can likely find other comparable police organizations around the country to call and interview their personnel about workload and deployment issues. With stronger criterion in each finding, there will be less resistance to the recommendations.
Communication is critical in a successful public safety audit. Your audit may point out some problems that the chief has not heard. Especially in large organizations, the information gets diluted and lost before it reaches management. Orders are given, directives are issued, and the assumption is that they are carried out and the problems are solved. Especially in a paramilitary structure, information flows up with difficulty, or only when the right question is asked. As a result, an auditor who draws a picture of actual practices may be delivering bad news, which is often received best in small doses during the course of the audit.
Maintain your professionalism throughout the audit. Follow your audit procedures and Standards to the letter. Quality check your draft report with a fine-tooth comb, and then be prepared for anything.
The draft that they see should not be a surprise. It should acknowledge some of their accomplishments, maintain a neutral tone, yet be clear and persuasive with its findings.
In the best of all worlds, the police managers will recognize that auditors with sharp pencils can make a positive difference in any organization, and will embrace your recommendations. If you have communicated frequently, they will have already done a reality check on your audit issues and began thinking about solutions. The meeting about the draft then becomes a discussion about a few words that could be changed for clarity and tone.
That’s in the best of all worlds. Police professionals have spent a career hearing criticism and they may not accept an audit report any differently. Again, strong criteria, good communications, clear and persuasive writing, and absolute professionalism will carry you through the worst situations. If they present arguments against your recommendations, test your assumptions. If you’re right, then incorporate their arguments into the report and refute them with your counterarguments. If you’re wrong, fix the report and meet with the agency again to acknowledge the changes. You will have disarmed one disagreement in an argumentative written response to the audit, and perhaps even change its tone. They will respect you, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
If it has been a positive process, issue the audit and focus your talking points on recommendations and actions they are taking. If you anticipate a contentious battle, then focus on effects and recommendations when you communicate the audit to reporters. The people you interviewed during the audit should get email links to the report because their buy-in may be beneficial. They often react to a news report, which may not depict the entirety or context of your audit work.
Once the dust has settled, follow-up is most important. Large organizations don’t move quickly and follow-ups are often necessary. If they’ve largely done what you recommended, then acknowledge it with a brief positive report and identify any benefits they have produced. If not, then reiterate the missed opportunities. They will learn that auditors persevere and the findings become an unavoidable irritant.
