BY MICHELLE KEY
PUBLISHER
OPELIKA — The Opelika Police Department (OPD) is restructuring.
During the Dec. 19 Opelika City Council meeting’s work session, Opelika Police Chief Shane Healey delivered a presentation to Opelika Mayor Gary Fuller and the council. Healey explained that the changes being considered during the meeting had been in the works for several years. He said that when he was appointed chief that the mayor and City Administrator Joey Motley discussed the need to have as many officers as possible and tasked him with evaluating the OPD organization as a whole to ensure it was operating at the highest level.
“This [discussion] began an internal review process to see if we were actually as efficient and effective as possible,” Healey said. “The answer was, ‘No.’ We were good at training police, had great equipment and were very good at the actual job of policing, but there was room for improvement on our internal functions so we could be even better.”
Healey explained during his presentation that while some positions within the OPD are being eliminated, others are being created and the overall net increase will only be one officer and 10 civilian employees.
“Right now, we are allowed to have 100 sworn police officers,” Healey said during the work session. With the affirmative vote from the council, the OPD will have 101 sworn officers.
One new position will be one with the rank of major. Instead of four Captain positions, now there will only be three. Also, restructuring within the ranks will take place.
Healey said that he is confident that the city will benefit from the changes.
“The city will benefit because we will have more police policing at one time than ever before,” Healey said. “We will be doing the little things even better which will increase the overall quality of the service we provide to our citizens.”
Some of the changes have already been implemented with positive results and a significant decrease in overtime costs.
“We have already made some moves and tried some new things, [and those changes] have already paid dividends,” Healey said. “One of the examples [of the restructuring] is that we were able to readjust the schedules for our K-9 officers.”
The OPD did a four-month test period of the new schedules for the four K-9 officers and saw positive changes.
“We have more officers on the street during the busiest times of the day. We have reduced overtime hours by almost 75% while using our assets to increase service. This is a good sign because once the rest of the reorganization is in place these efforts will multiply exponentially.”
Healey also explained that even with the new and amended positions, the changes will only require an additional $214,000 for the 2024 salary budget.
He also said that any challenges that might arise out of the changes will be internal.
“We will have to get used to working in a different system,” he said. “We will have several promotions and some people will be moved around and that will take a little time to get used to. Once we get over those growing pains, we will really start to soar.”
One of the changes will be hiring a new community relations specialist. Healey explained that Allison Duke, the community relations coordinator has spent approximately 700 plus hours outside the normal 40-hour work week between Jan. 1 and the end of October.
“We need to get her some help, … so we can even take this to the next level,” Healey said to the council. “Y’all know the work that she has done on social media, with traditional media; the impact that she has had on marketing and branding our police department to be forward-facing and very professional. She does a tremendous job. … It requires a tremendous amount of work.”
Healey spoke highly of the OPD’s hiring process and plans for a future retention program.
“Our recruiting efforts have been refined to bring the best quality candidates to the department as possible,” Healey said. “Next, we will train them in a more expanded way, so they are even better when they get to a shift. Then, we will be better focused on retention so we can keep these great folks working for us.”
Officer wellness is also something that Healey mentioned.
“If we are going to get quality people, get them in the door and get them to be police officers in the Opelika Police Department, then we need to take better care of them,” Healey said. “We need to build a retention program. A big piece of that retention program is officer wellness. You know physically, spiritually, psychologically, financially, whatever it takes whatever things we can do to enchance to their quality of life, so to speak, not just inside the police department but outside the police department. If we are taking care of them, they are going to take care our citizens out here on the streets.”
PUBLIC SAFETY CADETS
Another new program under the new plan is a public safety cadet program, for mainly high school students, or young adults in college that are considering a career in law enforcement.
“We all know that the worst time, especially for young men, is between the ages of 18 and 21,” Healey said. “You can’t be a police officer until you are 21. After you get out of high school, there is a lot of time in there you can make some mistakes that can prevent you from being a police officer. So, we have created a program that will help us recruit some kids coming out of high school that ultimately want to be police officers. We will keep them engaged, keep them [as] a part of our police department, we will give them some jobs to do while they are here … so that when they turn 21, they will be able to officially become police officers and then we can send them to the academy and get them certified.”
Healey also said that the program will help these students take advantage of education benefits offered by the city of Opelika.
“… We want to get them enrolled in college and get them planning to have a long career with us at the Opelika Police Department,” he said. “So, it is kind of a long-term recruiting strategy.”
SOCIAL WORK
Healey said that the impact of Yarbi Cound, the social work coordinator hired on Nov. 1, has been tremendous.
“Just in the month of November, she followed up on 36 cases that officers had been involved in that required further follow-up on the social services side to provide further resources for something to improve their quality of life,” he said. In 18 of those cases, Cound was able to refer the people involved to other organizations such as mental health, childcare, rent assistance and other types of services to help them.
Healey said that the plan from the beginning was to bring additional social workers in to aid Cound in furthering the program.
“I think we have tapped into something that is going to really change the dynamics for the citizens in our community by focusing on this piece of work,” Healey said. “Our officers love Yarbi. They are calling her, they are emailing her, texting her and she is able to follow up on these things, and we can do a whole lot more good work if we have some more people to work with her.”
Healey expressed the importance of the changes and the long-term goal for the OPD. He acknowledged the tremendous amount of work that has gone into the new plan and thanked his officers for their efforts.
“We have a lot of things in motion,” Healey said. “This is important. This is very important. For us to grow into the premiere police department in the state of Alabama, this is what we need to do. Our number one goal through all of this is to be the premiere police department in the entire state. We believe that if we’re given the opportunity to be able to put this plan into place, the quality of service that the Opelika Police Department provides to our citizens will grow exponentially. It will be fantastic.”
