Would police cuts harm tourism in Atlantic City?

ATLANTIC CITY - Can Atlantic City be a destination resort with fewer cops?

Among the proposals posted last week on the website run by the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority was "rightsizing" the city's police and fire departments.

The recommendation, posted the day after the second city summit led by Gov. Christie, calls for reducing the police department from 330 uniformed employees to 285, and the fire department from 261 to 180. It also brought up the possibility of regionalizing both departments to further save costs.

The city, financially strapped from casino tax appeals that have drained coffers of property tax revenue and from dealing with four casino closings, is looking for money and savings wherever it can. The owner of the Trump Taj Mahal said in court papers filed Friday it planned to close on or before Dec. 12 - which would make it the fifth gambling hall shuttered this year.

Mayor Don Guardian was not ready to comment yet on what the police and fire cuts would entail. He is drafting his own counterproposals to those reached at Wednesday's summit.

Pat Colligan, president of the New Jersey State Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents about 33,000 of 39,000 police officers statewide, said the union opposed the cuts.

"This is a disingenuous attempt to lay off cops," Colligan said Saturday. "When they are attempting to make Atlantic City into a tourist destination, they want a significant reduction in cops. Less police means more crime. It's the simplest law enforcement concept."

He said the resort would end up bringing in officers from elsewhere who don't know the community to patrol Atlantic City, including part-timers known as special law enforcement officials who can carry guns only in certain situations, and state police.

"They are going to employ state police from other parts of New Jersey, and residents of the state are going to pay for it," he said. "Atlantic City police officers have already given significant givebacks in their contracts, and to say now you want to dissolve the city [police] model to go to the county model is disingenuous.

"You're not spending less on police, you're basically cost-shifting to the state," Colligan said. "It's a shell game that will end up costing the state more."

But a state lawmaker who served two terms as mayor of Northfield and who participated in the summit gave his insight on why the cuts were needed.

Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo (D., Atlantic) who sits on the Assembly Gaming and Tourism Committee, said that although police and fire protection had been largely untouchable in a city that depends on tourism dollars, the city was out of options.

"It's a good start as far as the budget and if all are in," Mazzeo said. "I believe Atlantic City is now trying to be proactive.

"These are the types of proposals from the summit meeting that we wanted to see," Mazzeo said. "[Atlantic City's government] needs to do cost-cutting in its budget. The budget is unsustainable right now.

"I met with Mayor Guardian a few months ago, and he agreed the [city's] police department is top-heavy. You have a number of employees in leadership roles, but not enough cops on patrol.

"What I think [the mayor] wants to see is a restructuring of the department to get rid of the top-heaviness and also put more cops on the street," Mazzeo said. "There are a lot of moving parts to this. Tough decisions have to be made now."

Mazzeo, who was elected to the state Assembly last year, said Guardian and other municipal mayors across the state must have a new budget by March 2015, and trims have to be made by the end of the year.

Mazzeo said public safety was traditionally the biggest expense for any municipality. "It's usually police, fire, public works, then debt service as your biggest costs," he said.

According to the latest crime figures available from the state police, there were 139 aggravated assaults in Atlantic City through August 2014, down from 220 in the same period last year. The number of robberies also fell, to 195 from 237. The number of homicides has fluctuated from year to year, including a drop from 18 in 2012 to three in 2013.

"Nevertheless, we know it will take years - perhaps five - for the lingering perception that crime is a significant issue that affects visitation," said Israel Posner of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton College. The school recently received a grant from the state Attorney General's Office to study the issue.

"We have some research evidence that perception is an issue the closer one lives to Atlantic City," he said.

Visitors from more distant places, Posner said, were generally less likely to view the resort as unsafe.

"It's time for change in Atlantic City," Mazzeo said of both the city's finances and reputation. "People think there is high crime in the city. Perception is reality, and we have to change that image."

He said cuts in police and fire were usually done through attrition (those ready to retire, and a "last hired first fired" policy).

"This is all equated to stopping the bleeding in Atlantic City with the property taxes," Mazzeo said. "Before we can move on from the summit meeting, property taxes have to be addressed first.

"We have to stabilize the property tax rate in Atlantic City."

Mazzeo recently introduced legislation in Trenton that would reschedule the tax-appeal process statewide to dates before the adoption of local budgets to make it easier for municipalities to anticipate and plan for tax revenue losses.

When he introduced the measure in May, he said, "Our goal is to adopt a more pragmatic time frame for tax appeals in order to reduce costs for municipalities and ultimately save taxpayers their hard-earned money."