Fairfield Considers Cutting Police Department to Save Money
The Fairfield City Council recently made an unconventional move: they voted to get rid of their police department in an effort to save money. But some city leaders say it’s a shortsighted response to a big budget problem.
The city lost its two largest economic engines in the span of six months — a Wal-Mart Supercenter and the U.S. Steel plant. Now the city council says they’re struggling to crawl out of an $8 million deficit. In response, members want to get rid of the city’s law enforcement.
“If I had to cut anybody, the police department would be the very last department that you would cut from a city,” says Fairfield Mayor Kenneth Coachman.
The current cost of running the police department is roughly $2.5 million a year, and the majority of that’s eaten up by benefits, Coachman says. If the department is dissolved, the city’s alternative would be to contract with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office at an estimated $80,000 per deputy per year, he says. The sheriff’s office would then be responsible for benefits and retirement.
Coachman also is considering Chapter 9 bankruptcy as another option to help the city out of its debt crisis.
Chapter 9 provides financially distressed municipalities with protection from creditors by creating a plan to resolve debt. Coachman briefly discussed this option with other city leaders after Wal-Mart closed in January, but no action was ever taken, he says, adding that he’ll recommend it to the city council again “soon.” The only other option for Fairfield is annexation into Birmingham.
“I don’t want to be annexed,” says Fairfield City Council President Darnell Gardner. “And I can’t stress that enough. I think Fairfield can be saved … It’s my home. It’s where I was born, where my house is. It’s where my mother’s house is.”
Annexation and Chapter 9 bankruptcy would both be last-ditch options, says Gardner. But he also says cutting costs by methods like getting rid of the police department is the first step toward saving the city, though he admits he and the rest of the council are in the dark about many things:
“Still today, as president of the council, I don’t even know how many police officers we have.” He adds that what he calls a lack of transparency makes scrutinizing the city’s finances difficult.
Fairfield Police Chief Leon Davis and representatives from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office declined WBHM’s requests for comment.
The Fairfield Police Department is expected to close its doors on April 1. City leaders have asked the sheriff’s office for 12 deputies to patrol Fairfield, Gardner says. This would cost the city roughly $960,000 a year, a potential savings of just over $1.5 million. This is just a drop in the bucket for what Gardner says is truly needed to save Fairfield.
What happened when Lyndon Johnson federalized the National Guard
President Lyndon B. Johnson federalized the National Guard in 1965, calling on troops to protect civil rights advocates who were marching from Selma, Ala., to Montgomery.
Trump mobilizes Marines for duty in Los Angeles
U.S. Northern Command says the infantry battalion would be supporting the National Guard troops "who are protecting federal personnel and federal property in the greater Los Angeles area."
RFK Jr. boots all members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee
Health Secretary RFK Jr. has removed all 17 members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He says replacing them with new members will help restore 'public trust' in vaccines.
Justin Baldoni’s $400 million defamation suit against Blake Lively dismissed
Baldoni's $400 million lawsuit was in response to Lively accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us.
Sly Stone, visionary funk frontman of the Family Stone, has died at age 82
The musical visionary led a multi-racial funk band that produced five Top 10 hits in the late 1960s and early '70s.
Pam Bondi’s brother overwhelmingly defeated in heated race to lead the D.C. Bar
The race became a microcosm for the clashes and pressures on the American legal system this year, in part because one of the two top candidates is the younger brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi.
