No longer are Oak Lawn officers staffing the front desk at the police station, freeing them to be assigned to the station lockup where people who have been arrested are processed and held briefly before going to court.
Employees of Monterey Security are now being trained by officers to work the front desk, where employees receive non-emergency calls, take reports from citizens, answer questions, accept payments for tickets, distribute garage sale permits and direct visitors to the appropriate police or village personnel. It’s open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily.
The privatization is not costing any officers their jobs, village officials are quick to point out. The officers who worked the front desk also were assigned to the booking/lockup section, switching back and forth, and they asked to work full-time in the lockup, which is seeing more detainees, according to Mel Clark, division chief of patrol.
“It frees them up to concentrate on lockup. It’s busy there,” Clark said.
Village Manager Larry Deetjen said privatizing the police front desk is expected to save Oak Lawn about $100,000 per year.
Clark said the training of the Monterey employees is going well, and they should be able to run the desk without assistance by Dec. 1.
“Sometimes, it can get hectic (at the desk) with the amount of people coming in,” Clark, a 23-year department veteran, said. “Most of the time, they’re OK. You’ve got to be able to deal with people in different circumstances.”
Jennifer Ramos, of Monterey Security, recently was in her second day on the job and said, “it’s going great. I’m learning as I go.” She had been working security at a boat harbor in Chicago and with winter coming is happy to be working indoors.
Police Chief Michael Murray said staffing the front desk is more demanding than it might appear, and it’s important to have capable, and friendly, employees there “because it is the face of the department. It may seem like an easy position, but there’s a lot of institutional knowledge that goes along with it (in answering the public’s questions).
“We have people from Monterey working with an officer who trains them on the use of the equipment, the phones, the computer, as well as how to access information from different sources and how to respond to questions from the public. It’s a busy job, especially in the daytime with walk-in traffic.
Those working the front desk need to know exactly who to contact for various issues. For example, a resident who has a problem with raccoons in his yard would be directed to animal control, which is not part of the police department, Murray said.
Right now, the plan calls for five Monterey employees to staff the front desk on a rotating schedule with others being trained to fill in when needed.
“Then our people who had been working there can go back to booking,” the chief said.
Trustee Terry Vorderer, 5th District, a retired Oak Lawn police officer, said the privatization is a “win-win for the taxpayers and for the village. They provide services that are critical, and they free up officers to do their primary jobs,” Vorderer said. “… I’ve liked the concept from the beginning.”
