PWPD wants more officers despite hiring freeze

The Port Washington Police Department has proposed adding three new patrol officers in 2026, but that proposal may run up against a brick wall when the city’s General Government and Finance Committee meets to review the proposed budget next week.

“We’re not adding any staff for the 2026 budget,” City Administrator Melissa Gossett told the committee Tuesday, adding that the city is making a number of staffing related cuts for the coming year.

Gossett said the city won’t be adding any new vehicles next year either, with the exception of a fire truck that’s been on order for some time.

The Police and Fire Commission endorsed the police department’s request for more officers earlier this month based on a staffing study done by Captain Craig Czarnecki that said the department needs 13 new officers to bring it up to national standards.

“When I first saw that, I thought this must be wrong. That’s crazy,” Czarnecki told the commission. “Knowing money’s tight, we asked for three (officers).”

Adding three officers is a reasonable request that will bring the department more in line with the number of officers in similarly sized communities, he said.

It would bring the department roster to 23 officers, or 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, Czarnecki said, noting the department currently has 1.53 officers per 1,000 residents.

The FBI recommends police departments have 2.4 officers per 1,000 residents, he said, and the State of Wisconsin recommends 2.3 officers per 1,000 residents.

Czarnecki said Grafton has 23 police officers, or 1.9 officers per 1,000 residents, and Cedarburg has 24 officers, or 1.88 officers per 1,000 residents.

“We’re the lowest of the 12 jurisdictions I looked at that are of comparable size,” Czarnecki said. “I know that’s a huge money commitment. If we can get one, we’ll be very happy. 

“The bottom line is we need more staff than what we have.”

Starting pay for an officer is about $70,000, with benefits adding roughly 50% of that amount to the cost, Chief Kevin Hingiss said.

“It really is important to keep officers on the road where they’re seen,” Hingiss said. “It’s crime prevention.”

If the city’s population continues to grow as expected and no new officers are added to the department, the ratio will drop to 1.3 officers per 1,000 residents or lower within the next five years, the study states.

Port is growing, Czarnecki said, and while the city is safe, the number of calls officers respond to is increasing. And, he said, the time it takes to handle these calls is also increasing.

That’s especially true of mental health calls, drug prevention, intervention and overdose calls and cybercrime investigations, which have accounted for thousands of hours over each of the last three years, the study notes.

The Port police department, it noted, has more drug prevention and intervention calls than any department in the county except for the Sheriff’s Office.

The Port Police Department has 20 full-time officers, 16 of them in the patrol division. The other officers — the chief, captain, a detective and the school resource officer — handle few patrol duties.

The current staffing allows the department to have two officers each on the day, night and second shifts and two officers working so-called power shifts. This means only two officers are working from 2 to 10 a.m., according to the study.

“We feel that is very low and could be an officer safety issue,” Czarnecki said.

The city often operates at minimum staffing levels, the report states.

A major issue is the fact that the department has to backfill shifts if an officer is busy with an arrest, investigation or mental health call, the study states, noting that mental health calls can tie an officer up for two to 24 hours.

The Port police department has a number of younger officers who, when they work overtime, prefer to receive compensatory time off instead of overtime pay. When they use that comp time, the staffing schedule goes back to minimum numbers.

“It ends up being a cycle of us frequently being at staff minimums. Being at staff minimums on a constant basis also leads to staff burnout,” the report states.

It also makes it more difficult to schedule specialized training or to participate in activities such as the county Special Response Team or county drug task force.

Eliminating comp time doesn’t make fiscal sense and it would negatively affect morale, making Port a less desirable place to work, the study states. 

Czarnecki said there is a correlation between stretches of minimum staffing levels and increased sick days taken by officers.

The last time the department requested another officer was in 2015, Czarnecki said, adding that then the city’s population was about 2,000 fewer than the 13,000 it is at today and the total number of calls was lower.

Then, the backfill overtime averaged 176 hours compared to 422 hours in 2024, he said, and the number of minimum staffing days was 134 compared to 200 today.