How much should Fort Worth pay a police monitor? Council members disagree

The cost of a civilian city employee to monitor the Fort Worth Police Department, a key recommendation of a race relations task force, has at least one council member worried about city spending.

Others voiced support of the police monitor department’s nearly $300,000 budget.

The department would be staffed by a police monitor, someone with a legal or law enforcement background, and an assistant. The police monitor and a civilian police oversight board were top priorities of the city’s Race and Culture Task Force, and are meant to increase accountability and transparency of the police department. The department would report to City Manager David Cook and track police internal investigations, make reports and recommendations, and act as a liaison between the community and police department.

Councilman Cary Moon voiced skepticism about the monitor position last week during a 2020 budget workshop. Chiefly, he said, he couldn’t justify the cost to taxpayers.

The first of two public hearings on the city’s 2020 budget is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.

The bulk of the department’s roughly $294,000 budget will go directly to the police monitor in the form of more than $218,000 in salary and benefits. An assistant would make a little less than $74,000 with benefits. About $13,000 will be spent on computers and other equipment.

Moon said that was too much for a small department, but he had other concerns.

He disagreed that the police monitor should decide how a civilian oversight board will work. He wondered what would happen if the monitor pitched a plan that the council couldn’t agree with. Instead, he said, the council should discuss and vote on a civilian oversight committee.

“I don’t think we should hire someone to form a committee when we haven’t decided if we want that committee,” Moon said Monday. “The mayor and council should have a broad discussion about that and decide.”

Moon also said he worried the police monitor could be a barrier between the police and residents. One role of the monitor is to take complaints and comments about the police department.

The salary is in line with what other city department leaders earn, said Assistant City Manager Jay Chapa. The position will be treated like a department head so “they can interact with the police command staff as peers,” he said.

Councilman Brian Byrd, who has voiced concern that the proposed budget doesn’t go far enough to lower the city’s tax rate, said he supported the police monitor’s salary.

“That is a big salary for a person who is going to manage only one other, but this needs to be a director level position,” Byrd said. “I think we do need to move forward with the police monitor. I think that will help in terms of community relations.”

The budget didn’t concern Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray, but she said she did have concerns about the position. The job requirements needed to be clearer, she said, with more detail about how much authority the position would have.

“When something is new there’s a lot you don’t know,” she said. “I would like to better drill down on what this would look like.”

The police monitor and citizen oversight board are “signature” recommendations of the Race and Culture Task Force, co-chairman Bob Ray Sanders said. Though the task force did not specify how much the department’s budget should be, he said members expected the city would treat the position like a high-level department head.

“The amount of money from all the recommendations is minuscule compared to the city’s budget,” he said. “I realize the city manager has to think about every dollar, but if they’re really serious about this, that amount of money shouldn’t make any difference.”

The City Council in December voted to accept the Race and Culture Task Force report, which included dozens of recommendations to improve race relations through police oversight, transportation, education and other issues. In March, Cooke told council members the city should move forward with the recommendations at a cost of a little more than $3 million in the 2020 budget. Some of the funding would come from grants.

The task force was created following the 2016 arrest of Jacqueline Craig, whose case resulted in public outcry and highlighted racial and cultural inequalities in the city.

Craig was arrested with her two daughters in December 2016 after she called police to resolve a dispute with a neighbor. The confrontation that ensued was captured on video, which sparked outrage and complaints of excessive force.

Calls for greater police accountability have not died down, especially after a rash of officer involved shootings this summer.

Rumors the City Council would back away from civilian oversight of the police circulated rapidly last week before Thursday’s budget workshop, Sanders said. The notion the City Council would not follow through on some form of police monitor and oversight board alarmed task force members, he said.

“The community will not stand for that. I’m talking about the black community and the community as a whole,” he said.

This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 5:00 AM.