Police programs
could be cut

Chief Correa says PAL and DARE would
be expendable if push came to shove

Programs such as the Police Activities League and Drug Abuse Resistance Education could be on the chopping block as Police Chief Boisse Correa looks for savings in his department budget.

"We don't want to get to that point because we need preventive programs, but if we ever got to that point, we would cut our preventive programs to make sure that our community is well staffed and protected," Correa said.

Correa stressed that public safety will not be compromised as he works with Mayor Mufi Hannemann's administration.

But he also said that he is looking at possible cuts that could mean police officers on horses might become a thing of the past, and there might be fewer police officers responding to cases at prisons or other state facilities.

"What can we afford ... what do we really need, and can we maintain it? That's the same criteria we're using, that the mayor is using," Correa said.

City Council members heard from police officials yesterday about concerns that the department was being asked by the Hannemann administration to reduce its $176 million budget by 2.5 percent, or $4 million.

Budget Director Mary Pat Waterhouse said the 2.5 percent budget restriction was not mandatory and that the department has been told it will not be held to that number.

Waterhouse said the suggested budget restriction was designed to boost the city's bond rating by achieving additional budgetary savings from all departments. It is trying to build up cash reserves without hurting department services.

Correa said there is room in the budget. "We're spending money on nice things to do but does not have to be done," he said.

Correa said, for instance, that the department is rethinking overtime, as those costs swelled to $18 million last year.

As an example, Correa said, when the West Oahu Little League baseball team arrived Monday night, instead of calling in off-duty officers who would have been paid overtime for traffic and crowd control duties, the department looked to outlying districts that were "fuller than others," and brought those officers to work the event.

"So what we're doing now is trying to look at what's available versus just giving overtime automatic," Correa said.

He also said police departments on the mainland have looked to cutting their DARE programs and mounted police units, as well as programs similar to PAL, which he is also looking at here.

DARE takes police officers into island fifth-grade classrooms to educate children on the perils of drug use. The 58-year-old PAL program uses police officers to organize youth athletic programs. The department Web site boasts of thousands of participants in those programs.

Correa said he is also negotiating with the state on the kinds of cases city police officers would respond to when it comes to state facilities such as prisons and harbors.

But Detective Alex Garcia said that when it comes to public safety, every little bit taken away counts. He said the city could find itself in trouble in the future.

"Pretty soon, that public safety pipe is going to burst, and it's going to be too late for somebody that we could've saved," said Garcia, Oahu Chapter chairman for the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers.

Garcia said it is Correa's prerogative to decide what programs stay and go, but he says the union should have input.

"We would have to see how it affected the officers that are there, how it affected the community, where the officers would go and that type of thing," Garcia said.