Mansfield municipal officials struggle to replace police chief
By: William Wichert
MANSFIELD The shoes of retiring Police Chief James Humble are hard ones to fill.
As the 30-year veteran of the township force prepares for his Feb. 1 farewell, municipal officials are still struggling to find the best way to replace the chief of a Police Department with no built-in rank structure.
"We want to promote from within. We just need to be able to train (the current officers)," said Township Committeewoman Terri Tallon-Hammill. "You don’t take a teacher and make the teacher the superintendent of schools. Usually, there’s a progression."
The municipality expects to begin that progression next month, when an oral exam will be held to promote four of the 12 township patrol officers to sergeant for the first time in the force’s history, but the question remains: Who will run the Police Department after Chief Humble retires.
The Township Committee originally planned to hire a public safety director to serve as the administrator of the department until one of the four sergeants is ready to become chief, but a new proposal surfaced at the Jan. 11 committee meeting during a presentation by the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police (NJSACOP).
NJSACOP Executive Director Mitchell Sklar told the committee members that his organization recommended against hiring a public safety director, because such a person cannot perform many police duties.
Public safety directors may come from law enforcement backgrounds, but they have neither the power to arrest nor the ability to access classified police documents, he said.
"A public safety director is a civilian," said Mr. Sklar. "They can’t be involved in any police matters. What you have is an administrator."
Instead, Mr. Sklar proposed that Mansfield take advantage of two NJSACOP programs after its rank structure begins to take shape: a mentoring program and a police management consultant program.
In the mentoring program, current police chiefs in other municipalities would visit the township to work with those individuals slated to become the next chief, said Mr. Sklar. The consultant program would involve the township hiring a retired police chief as an executive consultant to oversee the department and train the ultimate chief, he said.
"We feel it’s our obligation to professional law enforcement to be involved in these things," said Mr. Sklar.
A final decision by the Township Committee is yet to come, because members of the governing body still differ on whether or not to hire a public safety director as Chief Humble’s replacement.
Speaking by phone Monday, Township Committeeman Jaime Devereaux said he believes it is better to hire a consultant through NJSACOP who can train the next chief for a smaller salary than a public safety director. Mr. Devereaux said he did not know what the consultant would be paid, but he expects the salary of a public safety director to be between $70,000 and $80,000. Chief Humble, who also serves as the township’s emergency management coordinator, earns a little less than $80,000.
"That’s a lot of money to pay someone. My determination is it’s better to bring in somebody from the chiefs (association)," he said. "It’d be foolish to not look at the information they gave us and make an informed decision."
The NJSACOP’s argument for the consultant program is somewhat flawed, Ms. Tallon-Hammill said, because, as Mr. Sklar admitted during his presentation, neither the consultant nor the public safety director would have the police powers of a chief.
A public safety director could still train the next chief in the same way that a consultant would, but also help create a better line of communication with township officials, she said.
"I don’t think the relationship (with a consultant) would be as strong," said Ms. Tallon-Hammill, who also serves as police commissioner. Although the public safety director position has not been officially created, the municipality already has interviewed three individuals for the job, all of whom are former State Police troopers, she said.
Either way, officials agree that an outsider of some sort needs to come in as Chief Humble’s immediate replacement until a rank structure is established a new system that should not only create the new police head, but also help keep the township’s officers in the municipality.
"It’s an incentive," said Ms. Tallon-Hammill. "People need to know there’s advancement opportunities for them."