Estimate shows CFD will profit from security charge, but why are Cheyenne police working there at all?

BY RICHARD JOHNSON

OK, folks. Here's another boring numbers article with regard to the dispute between the mayor and Cheyenne Frontier Days about paying for security for annual event. Under consideration is a 50-cent service fee on CFD tickets.

According to Police Chief Brian Kozak, police industry standards typically call for a ratio of between 500 and 1,000 attendees per officer during an event. In previous years, the ratio had hovered around 1,700 CFD visitors for every patrol officer on the scene.

Here is what the city's website has on police annual pay rates:

Patrol Officer, Entry Level, annual salary, $51,509.

Patrol Officer, Top Level, annual salary, $67,186.

I took the low end for my analysis on the principle of the Police Protective Association asking for annual raises while I was on the council.

The Department of Labor had the following calculation for police officer salary: $52,000 salary working 2,080 hours.

In this case, you can quickly compute the hourly wage by dividing the annual salary by 2,080. Your yearly salary of $52,000 is then equivalent to an average hourly wage of $25 per hour.

According to Internet research, the Cheyenne Police Department currently has between 105-110 staffers. So

Cheyenne Police officers provide security at Frontier Days.

 let's assume that on CFD week, you have deployments, PTO, illness and other assignments that take your staff down to 80 people. I am going to low-ball this analysis to include rookie rates, knowing that sergeants, detectives, etc. would likely be paid more, including time and a half. But for the sake of this analysis, we are keeping it simple.

My equation has 80 people putting in 20 hours of overtime; that should be a 60-hour work week.  Mind you, some could do more. The Department of Labor calculations had $25 time and a half at $37.50 an hour.

So … 80 people × 20 hours × $37.50 = $ 55,200, plus payroll taxes of $4,222.80 and your additional unemployment insurance and workman’s comp of $6,558.  Grand total: $65,979.80. 

The law sets no limits on how many hours a day or week your employer can require you to work. It requires only that employers pay employees overtime (time and a half the worker's regular rate of pay) for any hours over 40 that the employee works in a week. 

So, per the chief's people-to-officer ratio, the Post Malone night show should have had between 27 and 54 officers for 27,000 people. It sucks there were no meeting minutes on this discussion between City Hall and CFD. And we don’t have a spreadsheet reflecting police overtime rates to equate the initial $100,000 request made by the police department for CFD costs. 

Basically, all we have is a blank check ask by the department — with a public safety rallying cry — encompassing no solid figures and data whatsoever. 

I'm not going to blindly follow you into the trenches just because you say so. The mayor's State of the City said Cheyenne Police makes good use of data. Well, where is it?

Now, let’s look at the study. The Center for Public Safety Management wrote an article on police staffing in regards to officers per thousand people. Here's part of what it said:

“Police agencies routinely speak about ‘recommended officers per 1,000 population’ or a ‘national standard’ for staffing or comparisons to other municipalities. There are no such standards. Nor are there ‘recommended numbers of officer per thousand.’ Nor is it useful to make comparisons with other communities."

The International Association of Chiefs of Police states, “Ready-made, universally applicable patrol staffing standards do not exist. Ratios, such as officers-per-thousand population, are totally inappropriate as a basis for staffing decisions.”

Now let’s look at Cheyenne Frontier Days’ 50-cent security fees per ticket, according to 2019 numbers. 

In 2019, CFD stated it had 120,518 attendees at night shows. That comes to $60,259 for concerts if the 50-cent security fee was included. CFD also stated it had 97,373 attendees to the rodeo. That comes to $48,686.50 for rodeo with the 50-cent security fee.

Total garnered with the 50-cent security fee would be $108,945.50.

In this scenario, CFD would come out ahead of the rate to CPD overtime. Granted, CPD numbers are probably higher, but I don’t feel like filling out a Freedom of Information Act request just to fight with the police department.

My issue with my equation is having 80 officers at one location collecting overtime. There are already a couple hundred volunteers on CFD’s Security Committee that come from law enforcement and military backgrounds. Why is a police presence required? I get it for the detaining purposes, but why can't CFD call the police department like Walmart does when a problem occurs? The CPD Facebook page alerts me daily of another taxpayer-funded response for another shoplifter. 

Public safety is an issue, but I have problems with the tactics used for studies that may not have merit. While researching this article, I found a piece on Austin, Texas, requesting 116 new officers due to its big events, Austin City Limits and South by Southwest. When did “serve and protect” take shotgun to a city-funded security company?

            Richard Johnson is a former City Council member from east Cheyenne.