Penn Hills and Rankin: different towns, different takes on police consolidation

From the freshly painted walls to the sparkling floors, everything smelled new — Penn Hills police had been in the municipality’s new headquarters, which they share with other branches of government, for only a few weeks. It’s state-of-the art, brightly lit and designed to be secure.

Chief Burton thinks many police departments in the county need to consolidate and join forces — but he’s not keen to move out of his spiffy new headquarters.

“I don’t think we’d give it up,” he said. “But honestly we’d be one of the bigger [departments] that probably wouldn’t be touched as far as consolidation.”

Penn Hills Police Chief Howard Burton talks with an agent from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office. (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)

It’s been decades since anyone discussed consolidating with Penn Hills, Chief Burton said — the last instance he remembered was a discussion with Verona perhaps 20 years ago — and no such discussions are ongoing. Back then, Verona “didn’t want Penn Hills police coming down and arresting their people,” Chief Burton said.

Penn Hills police aren’t against extending their coverage if other departments want to join them, Chief Burton said, but he’d need more funding and staffing.

“We couldn’t just absorb them without increasing staffing,” he said, adding that local leaders would need to get together and figure out who’d give up what to whom. Most of the departments immediately around Penn Hills — Wilkins, Monroeville, Plum — have sufficient budgets and staffing and may not need consolidation, Chief Burton said.

Local officials have been discussing regionalization for decades. In the ‘70s, when Chief Burton was new on the job, no one wanted to consolidate.

“At that point in time I could see why,” he said. “The steel mills were still running, communities were self-sufficient. But due to the changing economy, these small towns and communities just can’t afford to run a police department.”

That reality drives the stark differences in policing resources between municipalities — sometimes even between neighboring towns.

Penn Hills officers make significantly more money than those in neighboring Verona, which has a force of nine, three full-timers and six part-timers. Part-timers there start at $13.50 an hour, while the chief earns about $58,000 — less than a first-year officer in Penn Hills, who starts at $68,000. Penn Hills police are some of the best paid in the county.

Penn Hills has around 19 marked patrol cars and 53 officers, including 11 detectives, to handle policing for the 42,000 people in Penn Hill’s 20 square miles. Officers responded to nearly 23,000 calls in 2017, according to Allegheny County 911. Penn Hills police handle their own investigations, except homicides, which they pass to the Allegheny County Police Department.

Agents from the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office train in the Penn Hills police department’s shooting range. The indoor range includes dimmable lights and is part of a $12 million state-of-the art facility. (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)

Giving a tour of the new facility, Chief Burton paused inside the building’s firing range, where officers can train with rifles and pistols. He adjusted a switch, and the lights dimmed to simulate dawn or dusk because officers aren’t always firing in the full light of day.

The facility is a huge step up from their old building — now a dungeon-like place which itself was state-of-the art when Chief Burton started on the force in 1969.

“We’ve always been equipped with technology and equipment,” he said. “And it’s stayed that way, as you see here. It costs a lot more now than it did. That’s always a challenge in every department — to try to meet the needs.”

It costs about $6,000 to put an officer on the street, he said — and that’s just for equipment and the uniform. Cash-strapped towns that turn to part-time officers lose a level of professionalism, Chief Burton said.

Penn Hills Police officers and paramedics respond to a call about an emotionally disturbed person. (Michael M. Santiago/Post-Gazette)

“It’s not [the officers’] fault, they’re looking for a job, they’re working, trying to survive, they want to be police officers, and that’s the best they can do right now,” he said. “You can’t blame them. And for the community, you get some part-time officers, you pay them a little bit of money, and OK, you’ve got a police department! Well, you have a policeman in name. I’m not faulting these guys or these communities, but we’ve got to step back and take a look at it and see what we can do here.”

Penn Hills Lt. Joe Snyder started his career as one of those part-time officers, working 32 hours a week for $7 an hour in Braddock in 2000 (starting pay in Braddock now is $11.80 an hour). There were three other officers on his shift. Two had started two weeks before him; the other was the shift lieutenant.

“That was my first police job,” he said. “You don’t know anything. And the guys who have been there two weeks aren’t going to teach you anything.”

Once, one of Braddock’s two patrol cars broke down and the department had to rent a generic replacement cruiser.

“It just said, ‘Police,’ on it,” Lt. Snyder remembered with a laugh. “I knew Braddock was not my career.”

Lt. Snyder, like Chief Burton, believes consolidation of police forces is needed in the county. Small departments with part-timers just don’t have what they need for training and equipment, he said, and it’s not fair to citizens or police officers. But he’s not sure whether a single countywide force should take over or several regional departments.

It’s up to citizens to make those decisions, he said.

“Society rules how police work,” he said. “We have to adapt to what society wants.”