Mounting Lynn PD budget a concern

LYNN – Lynn police administrators said in a recent meeting that the department’s current budget concerns center on medical costs for an injured officer, gas prices and overtime for officers attending court hearings.Police Chief John Suslak said his department’s most immediate budget problem is how it’s going to pay the medical bills of Officer Gregory LeBlanc who was seriously injured in a police car accident on July 12.”I think that the medical bills so far for Officer LeBlanc are several hundred thousand dollars and mounting,” Suslak said. “We don’t have that kind of money allotted in our budget.”Suslak said that he spoke with the city’s Chief Financial Officer Rick Fortucci last week in hopes that City Hall would help reimburse the bills of the seven-year veteran officer and father of two girls.”We could work something out where the department’s budget is not going to be responsible for those costs. We’ll keep our fingers crossed on that,” Suslak said.The chief said he saw LeBlanc at a golf tournament last weekend and the officer told him he might have to undergo more surgeries before he can return to work.”He looked well,” Suslak said. “He has a long road ahead of him and we wish him well.”Suslak said another area where his department is trying to cut spending is overtime for police officers who attend court hearings.Officers who must testify at trials and court hearings are often left waiting in courthouses for hours if a case gets delayed. Usually the officers must go to court during time they’re not scheduled to work, meaning they must be paid overtime.”It’s been a bit of the problem in the past,” Suslak said. “(If) we have multiple cases scheduled for one day and they don’t go forward we have a bunch of officers just essentially hanging around, which costs us money but also wastes their time.”Suslak said the court overtime is an area of concern despite the fact that overtime paid to those officers was also down $2,200 per week than what was expected between Aug. 13 and Sept. 13.Suslak announced last week that he was chosen to serve in a new statewide committee that will examine overtime costs for officers in courthouses. He said members of the new committee will “put their heads together” to try to alleviate overtime costs in both the district and superior courts.Police Captain Ted Blake said the amount of gasoline used in police cars was $4,078 over budget in July but was only $600 over budget in August.It’s the first year the department has separated gasoline from its overall expense budget due to the dramatically fluctuating cost in fuel over the last few years.Blake said the department is allotted approximately $273,150 for gasoline for the year, which is about $22,762 per month.He acknowledged that the department stepped up patrols in July due to an increase in violence this spring, but warned that if officers had used vehicles at an increased rate then the department would be $50,000 over budget for the year.”We have to be concerned with the use of cruisers on the street and more fuel being used,” Blake said.Department officials added some positive news about the budget: Overtime costs for officers in the past four weeks were down $3,400 per week than what was projected.Also, the overall police budget had a $151,722 surplus as of Sept. 13, according to the Lynn police department. About $25,000 of that is expected to move into a patrol division overtime fund.The LPD has also received $45,881 from a Community Policing grant, approximately $69,500 from the Shannon Grant and $20,513 from miscellaneous grants.Suslak warned that the department must be careful about how it utilizes the surplus because unforeseen events could eat up money down the road.”When we say there’s a surplus of ‘X’ amount of dollars, that can be misleading because next spring we hope to put additional patrols on nights and weekends ? to deal with some of the crime trends that we’re seeing,” Suslak said.Police officials said overtime for “special