More than three months into operation, the Camden County Police force has policed the streets of Camden City in the hopes of reducing the high crime rate. Camden’s police were the first to join the county force. Additional Camden County municipalities have yet to join.
Voorhees Township is not looking to step in that direction.
“It’s a regional problem that needs to be solved with a regional solution,” county freeholder Louis Cappelli said, regarding the high crime rate in Camden.
In the state’s Uniform Crime Reports, overall crime in Camden City decreased 12.6 percent, to 488 offenses, from January to June 2012 when compared to January to June 2013.
According to Camden County spokesman Dan Keashen, the county budgeted $62 million for 401 officers and 100 civilian staff as well as 36 dispatchers.
“If Camden City were to have proposed the same department, which several nationally renowned police experts have outlined in their personnel numbers, they would have paid $85 million in just police salaries,” Keashen said.
Not all municipalities believe the move to a regional police force is efficient for the needs of the entire county.
“What works in Camden might not work in [other towns]. Policing in the city is different than in the suburbs,” Voorhees Police Chief Lou Bordi said. “Policing is just different.”
Although Bordi said the township is not looking to regionalize its police force, he understands why the county had to move in that direction — to increase the presence of officers and reduce crime.
“This has been a way to get their numbers back up. So they can provide services in that city that desperately needs it,” Bordi said.
Cappelli said there are 36 police chiefs in the county, and over the past few years with the economic downturn, as well as the 2 percent mandated cap on municipal tax increases, local police departments have reduced manpower.
“If we put more officers and detectives on the streets, it would allow us to regionalize and consolidate upper management,” Cappelli said, adding money would be better spent on patrol officers.
If a municipality is not interested in consolidating its police force, the county offers other services to help alleviate expenses in areas that do not directly affect patrol officers.
In May, Voorhees Township Committee approved four-year contracts with the Voorhees Police Officers Association, Senior Officers Association and the township’s Sergeant Association.
The contracts increased the department’s pay scale to 16 steps, but the salaries are lower — the scale begins at a lower level and ends at a lower level, Township Manager Larry Spellman told The Sun in May.
According to Spellman, the township has hired nine new officers since January, with 45 officers total.
A joint agreement was also approved between Eastern Regional High School and Voorhees
Township Public Schools to increase officers’ presence in schools, Bordi said.
“I think once we can show municipalities we can operate much more efficiently with more officers on the street, we will be getting more interest from municipalities to join,” Cappelli said.
