The no-tax-increase budget touted by backers of a new city of Dunwoody proposes a police force that, compared with other cities, could be described as bare bones.

How bare?

The new city's police force would serve almost twice as many residents as Decatur with fewer officers: 28 full-time officers are proposed for Dunwoody, compared to 36 now in Decatur.

A survey of other departments by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found Dunwoody's proposed ratio of .75 officers per thousand residents is well below police staffing levels in smaller cities like Decatur, larger cities like neighboring Sandy Springs and similar-sized cities like Peachtree City.

The police plan is part of a proposed municipal budget cited by Citizens for Dunwoody Inc., the nonprofit organization that pushed for the referendum on incorporation which citizens of the north DeKalb community will vote on July 15. If it passes, Dunwoody will be a city on Dec. 1.

Representatives for the group defended the plan, saying city police coverage will exceed police service currently provided by DeKalb County. But the group declined to answer several specific questions from the AJC about comparable police staffing levels and other police issues for the proposed city.

The group's leaders would not say whether any law enforcement professional has reviewed their plan. They also would not say why projections for the city's police force were downsized after an initial report projecting a larger force was prepared by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.

Ken Wright, president of Citizens for Dunwoody Inc., said the proposed city budget would increase police patrols so that four officers will be on the street at any given time instead of three.

"A city of Dunwoody will have four patrols," Wright said in an e-mail, "fully dedicated and assigned only to serving Dunwoody. Right now, because our 'assigned' patrols can be called away at any time to service other parts of the county, we have somewhere between zero and three police patrols."

Beyond patrol officers

Currently, Dunwoody is part of the patrol area of the DeKalb County Police Department's North Precinct, which has 116 sworn officers and six civilian employees.

The precinct has eight patrol "beats," including three making up the proposed city of Dunwoody. At least one officer is assigned to each beat on each of the three overlapping 10-hour shifts except in rare circumstances, said Deputy Chief Gerald Horner.

The Dunwoody plan would devote 20 officers to patrolling and only eight other officers, including a chief, for all other duties.

The projected Dunwoody police force would have two detectives. By contrast, the current North Precinct has two detectives assigned to burglaries and auto break-ins alone in Dunwoody, Horner said. Dunwoody makes up the majority of the area of a third detective who handles auto break-ins, he said.

Violent crimes and auto thefts are investigated by other detectives based at police headquarters, Horner said. In Dunwoody so far this year, officers have responded to 11 aggravated assaults or batteries, two rapes, 30 robberies and 108 auto thefts, Horner said.

Headquarters also supplies record-keeping, crime analysis, and on-the-scene help from SWAT, commercial vehicle, parks, canine, bomb, crime scene and gang units, Horner said.

Citizens for Dunwoody officials declined to respond to questions about how investigations and other nonpatrol functions would be handled.

Plan downsized

The police force currently proposed for Dunwoody would cost $2.78 million per year, according to a revenue and expenditure analysis prepared by the Vinson Institute and sponsored by Citizens for Dunwoody Inc.

But that plan calls for a significantly smaller department than envisioned in a feasibility study by the Vinson Institute in 2006. That study's lowest estimate for patrol officers and patrol supervisors —- excluding all other police functions —- was 27.

Dunwoody's plan now specifies 20 patrol officers. Three sergeants are listed in the plan, but their duties are not specified and Citizens for Dunwoody would not elaborate on how much of their jobs might support patrol officers.

To add seven more patrol officers, Dunwoody would need to spend $364,000 a year, based on per-officer costs in the latest projected Dunwoody budget. That would more than wipe out the projected surplus of $278,789 in the entire proposed city budget.

There is no apparent provision for civilian employees in the police proposal. Representatives for the citizens group declined to say whether any other employees would help police officers.

Sen. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta), who has spoken out against the cityhood referendum, said, "The idea of having a bare bones police force is frightening."

Chambers added that cityhood proponents are aware that "the police proposal is not adequate for a community with this level of residential and commercial development."

Wright said residents should focus on "the reality of today" and know that DeKalb County does "not provide the level of services to Dunwoody that Sandy Springs and other cities provide to their residents."

Plugging in scenarios

Population levels are not the only to way to judge police staffing levels, and the International Association of Chiefs of Police criticizes a population-based approach.

Instead, the police chiefs' organization has produced a complex formula which was used in a 2006 Dunwoody study by the Vinson Institute. The researchers plugged in two scenarios to the formula: one based on calls to police and other statistics in Roswell, and one based on statistics for north DeKalb. Both scenarios then were adjusted to fit Dunwoody's projected needs.

The results, which the study said reflected Dunwoody's "substantially lower than average crime rates," produced recommendations of 27 patrol officers and supervisors in the scenario comparing Dunwoody to Roswell, or 40 patrol officers and supervisors in a scenario comparing Dunwoody to the rest of north DeKalb.

But the size of the proposed police force shrank when the Vinson Institute produced its second study in January 2008. The second Vinson Institute report notes that other cities' staffing levels were not considered, and "Citizens for Dunwoody Inc. requested that CVIOG calculate the number of officers needed to staff a police department assuming four patrols [per shift]."

Asked what Dunwoody would do if the proposed police staffing levels were deemed inadequate after incorporation, Chambers said, "A tax increase on businesses and homeowners will be required."

Said Wright, "The City Council members can choose to change the level of funding if they determine there's a need greater than the 25 percent increase over what DeKalb provides today."

SELECTED DEKALB POLICE FORCES

City..........Pop....Sworn

.....................officers

Dunwoody*....37,154....28

Decatur......19,053....36

Chamblee ....10,832....35

Stone Mt......7,522....20

Clarkston ....7,508....16

Avondale Est..2,792....12

*proposed

 SHANNON PEAVY / Staff 
HOW MANY COPS? 
City officers per thousand: 

Decatur .........1.9 
National average 1.8* 
Peachtree City ..1.7 
Sandy Springs....1.4 
Dunwoody ........0.75** 

*National average for populations of 50,000 to 99,000, calculated by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. 
**Proposed 
Sources: Police departments, Citizens for Dunwoody