Naperville’s proposed $507.3 million budget for 2021 includes money to launch a police body camera program and provide crisis intervention training for 25 officers.
But some Naperville City Council members said this week they’d like see even more funding allocated to the department in order to increase the traffic division and to get more officers trained to handle crisis situations.
Mayor Steve Chirico said adding more police devoted to traffic control would go a long way toward addressing one of the community’s top grievances. Vehicles speeding through residential areas or locations with unsafe driving conditions are important neighborhood issues, he said.
“This year in particular we’ve had just a tremendous number of complaints about the downtown area and arterial roads with drag racing and loud vehicles,” Chirico said. “We just need more resources, and I don’t know that we have anything in the budget this year. But I believe we absolutely need to.”
This summer alone city police issued 135 tickets for loud mufflers and screeching tires, compared to 10 in 2019, according to recent data.
Before 2010, the Naperville Police Department had 11 officers dedicated to traffic law enforcement but cuts were made when the recession occurred, Chirico said.
“We never really brought them back year after year,” he said.
Chirico would like the city to rebuild the traffic division or add police in a multifunctional role, like the special response unit that was included in the 2020 budget, he said.
“My view is clear that we need to have more resources to apply toward this,” the mayor said. “I think working back up to that 11 traffic cop range is going to be really important, and I think that this is something that the residents absolutely will appreciate and really will support and expect.”
Staff has estimated the cost of hiring five entry-level officers is $500,000.
Council members Theresa Sullivan and John Krummen said they’d like to see more Naperville officers receive crisis intervention training in 2021.
With mental health issues being compounded by the coronavirus pandemic, it’s critical that all police officers are prepared to handle situations that require a calm response that can prevent things from escalating.
Police Chief Robert Marshall said one of the challenges is securing the instructors needed to teach the 40-hour course.
“This training is highly in demand throughout the state of Illinois, and there’s only a certain amount of trainers that are certified to (present) this course,” Marshall said.
The goal had been to get officers into the program this year, but “obviously with COVID, we had to suspend that training for 2020,” he said.
“We plan to continue that next year and actually host a class in our police department (in) which we will be able to certify 25 officers,” he said.
A quarter the force is certified so far, Marshall said.
Besides the challenge of acquiring an instructor, the other problem is scheduling a 40-hour course into a work week, he said. The cost to train 25 officers is about $20,000.
Even if the teacher is available and the course can be offered locally, not every officer could participate by the end of 2021, Marshall said.
Based on the regulations for training, only officers who have been with the department at least two years are eligible to get certified, he said.
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