Commissioner Meiner and Commissioner Rosen Gonzalez placed a referral to the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee (FERC) on the February 22, 2023, City Commission Meeting agenda to direct the city administration to identify and plan for the deployment of additional law enforcement officers or traffic control officers, to direct traffic and operate traffic control devices on major corridors in the city during the peak hours (4 p.m. – 7 p.m.) of traffic congestion.

The item was heard at the February 22, 2023, City Commission meeting and referred to the Finance and Economic Resiliency Committee (FERC) meeting to address the fiscal impacts of the proposed measure.

Due to the increasing need for traffic mitigation throughout our city, the Administration will review and consider for recommendation  ten (10) Public Safety Specialists (PSS) to be hired and added to the police department's current cadre of five (5) PSS' to address traffic conditions and free up police officers for other crime related activity. Understanding that traffic issues are cyclical, adding these ten (10) PSS' would provide the resources to address the traffic-related problems while allowing these employees to do much more. Every non-hazardous call for service, report written, or non-injury vehicle accident investigated by one of these PSS' frees up a police officer to address other crime-related activity.

The PSS' would be directed to traffic "hotspots" throughout the city during high-traffic volume periods to help alleviate the congestion and increase the traffic flow allowing for optimum passage based on the traffic volume encountered in real-time.

The total cost to onboard ten (10) PSS' is projected to be $943,222.40, which includes the cost estimates of salaries and benefits for year one,  estimates for all equipment-related costs, and the price of the PSS academy.

Refer to the attached detailed breakdown of costs associated with the implementation of the additional PSS'.