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The Dallas County Constable’s Office, Precinct Three, is in great need of both restructuring AND a competent, elected Constable who can both accomplish the restructuring and lead this Office into the future!
It takes a trained, experienced Administrator with strong Academics behind him to accomplish these goals.
That person is ME!!
Here are the major points of my Master Plan:
** MY PRIMARY PHILOSOPHY: Run this Office like a Business!
- “Cost Centers” need to be established within the Office, and each of these Cost Centers and the people who run them must operate within a strict budget.
- The Cost Centers need to pay for themselves... they need to operate consistently within a balanced budget structure and be properly managed by capable department managers.
- This Constable’s Office has NEVER operated WITH A BALANCED BUDGET, and it is time that began to happen! If income exceeds actual expenses, that overage should be returned to the taxpayers in the form of tax reductions where we can keep the operational costs of this governmental agency DOWN! This is the purest of Republican ideals: maintaining a balanced budget!
** Trim the “Budget Fat”:
The current Fiscal Year 2006 Budget of this Office is $ 3.186 Million Dollars!
The Budget has increased by 33% over the past three years! That is 11% per year- both astronomical and unnecessary!
The Precinct Three Office contains 39 sworn law enforcement personnel and a civilian clerical staff of 12, but there still is a great amount of “fat” in this budget that will be continually increasing, year by year, unless a fiscally-responsible elected Constable is placed in charge of this Office. That person is ME!
Trimming the “fat” out of the budget is a Republican “fiscal responsibility” issue that many elected Officeholders talk about but very few actually accomplish. I plan to accomplish it, not just talk about it, and I will start with cost-cutting major innovative new projects never done by any previous Constable:
1. Establish a new “Civil Process Officer” position within the Office. This position will be a non-sworn civil process serving officer, to handle the excessive “Paper Process” service load now handled by the Civil Deputies of the Office. These positions will be paid on the same scale as the Sheriff Department’s Detention Service Officers, a pay scale level approximately 1/4th below that of a higher paid sworn Deputy Constable. The simple fact is that higher-paid sworn Deputies are now serving this Process, and this is not a “hazardous duty” function that requires an armed and trained law enforcement deputy to perform! Therefore, the budget for salaries alone can be reduced by almost 1/4th over a period of time for about three-fourths of the Civil Deputy staff, a savings of roughly $190 thousand Dollars (in FY06 money) over the next four to six years.
- Do the math: FOUR of these new Civil Process Officers can be acquired for the same budget dollars that currently provide THREE sworn Deputies... an increase of ONE additional working person for the same money currently being paid to three!
- No one will lose their job! This process will take some time to complete... no major changes can ever take place overnight. Time duration will be determined from the constraints of the Office and its operation. Some Civil Deputies could and would likely be reassigned to Criminal Warrant and other duties as needed, while others would remain in their Civil positions as there is still quite a lot of Civil Process that, by law, must be served by a sworn Deputy Constable.
- Other Civil Deputies could be replaced over a period of time through the natural attrition of retirements and/or requested transfers. Again, no one will lose their job! Happy employees mean hard-working employees!
2. Establish a strong and well-trained “Reserve (Volunteer) Deputy Constable” sworn officer force. Reserve Deputy Constables receive and achieve the exact same training that a regular-salaried Deputy receives, and they work FOR FREE as volunteers in the various duties of the Office. Requirements of a sizeable Reserve force shall be set to equal a minumum of at least FOUR salaried, full-time Deputy Constables at all times, AT NO COST TO THE COUNTY.
- This will create an average of approximately $160,000 per year in budgetary dollar savings to Dallas County that would otherwise be unnecessarily spent by increasing salaried Deputy personnel!
- The Precinct Three Constable’s Office is the only one of five Constable Precincts in Dallas County that does NOT currently have a working force of Reserve Deputies. This is ridiculous!
** Establishment of a wider range of Community Service and Law Enforcement offerings by the Precinct Three Constable’s Office at little to no additional cost to Dallas County!
- Drug Abuse Education, Sexual Abuse Education, and Family Violence Education Programs shall be set up and conducted for the schools and for various civic communities within the Precinct, to be staffed largely by non-salaried Reserve Deputies as part of their regular required duties of the Office.
- An “Extra Eyes and Ears” Crime Deterrent Program shall be established which increases Law Enforcement (sworn Deputy Constable) visible presence both in the business community and in the residential areas of the Precinct shall be established.. This will consist of an increased “marked squad” patrol presence to deter burglaries and robberies in the Precinct, helping to support as an adjunct to the City Police of the seven Dallas County cities which are served by the Precinct Three Constable’s Office. This program will be operated during periods when the Civil and Warrant Deputies have completed their daily regular service routines of Civil Process and Warrant functions, and more especially by non-salaried Reserve Deputy personnel, and shall function both in the daytime and at night. This program will be almost cost-free to Dallas County, funded by organizational and Federal grants and business community donations within the confines of law.
- A special Family Violence Enforcement Unit shall be established to immediately serve Family Violence Protective Orders and other associated court process, and to competently handle Protective Order violators by immediately tracking them down, arresting them, and placing them where they need to be--- in JAIL!
- A specially-trained and certified Mental Health Officer Unit shall be established to serve the Mental Health Care community, handling Mental Health protective custody warrants and making field reviews of mentally impaired individuals who may be a danger to themselves or others, and to competently and safely handle this important segment with dignity by placing them in protective custody and transporting them to County Mental Health facilities for proper and lawful treatment. This Unit may be operated at little to no additional cost to Dallas County by staffing it with both grant and Reserve Deputies.
- A special Probation and Parole Violator Retrieval Unit shall be established to pay special attention to the retrieval and placement in jail of this recurrent criminal element of our society. This Unit, like the above special units, may be operated at little to no additional cost to Dallas County by staffing it with both grant and Reserve Deputies
- Maintenance of a special Sex Offenders Resident Registry to be carried by all Deputies and for those Deputies to periodically visit and review the Sex Offenders in their geographical zones for lawful compliance.
- Other Programs and “ancillary operations” already in effect (i.e., Traffic Division and others) will be continued and will be increased, or conversely decreased or deleted altogether, depending on the financial return versus value they contribute to the Office. This will be determined by continual review to reassure the best possible return to the taxpayer for the tax dollar spent... based on the Republican ideals of a BALANCED BUDGET!
** A new Employee Incentive Program:
It is a well-know fact that happy employees give that “extra effort” to the success of any business. The Deputies and Clerical staff of this Office need a completely new system set in place to give them incentive to work harder and accomplish more “work product” than is currently being accomplished.
I plan to establish several new incentives at no additional cost to Dallas County for the employees of this Office:
- Initiate a morale-boosting “Compensatory Time Off” award system for high-level performance of employees both in the service of Civil Process as well as Criminal Warrants. This will apply to the Clerical staff as well as the Deputies.
- Special award recognition for both Clerical and Deputies.
- Special Awards to Staff from the Business Community of Precinct Three within the parameters allowed by law.
No other Candidate offers this wide a range of planned service offerings for this Constable’s Office. This is a result of my administrative skill set combined with my special set of Academic degrees and training. This is why I am the best choice for Constable of Precinct Three!
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