Tompkins County public safety goals and initiatives planned this year

Members of the Public Safety Committee of the Tompkins County Legislature reviewed the 2024 county public safety goals at their most recent meeting and heard updates on those goals from county department heads. In the area of public safety, 2024 will mean continuing efforts against gun-related violence, furthering transparency goals with online data portals and the hire of a new Tompkins County corrections supervisor. 

Tompkins County Assigned Counsel: More attorneys to help move caseload along

In the area of assigned counsel, there is a plan to enhance and update the website’s Attorney section to promote the assigned counsel program and bolster attorney recruitment efforts, which ties into its next goal: continuing the recruitment of additional attorneys to reduce caseloads and maintain brief time periods between the submission of client applications and attorney assignments.

The assigned counsel department recently added six new assigned counsel attorneys to its panel of around 30 lawyers, Lance Salisbury, supervising attorney at the Tompkins County Assigned Counsel’s  office, said at the committee meeting Feb. 29. The new hires are of varying levels of experience, he said, and that allows for the more experienced members of the panel to devote their time to more serious felony cases while their less experienced peers take on the less involved cases.

Salisbury said his department is beginning to see the positive results of increasing pay rates for assigned counsel.

As part of the final enacted 2023-24 state budget, County Law § 722-b was amended to increase the hourly rate paid to assigned counsel from $60 per hour for misdemeanors or lesser offenses and $75 per hour for all other types of assigned counsel matters (felonies, appeals and family court matters) to $158 per hour for all types of matters, according to the New York State Office of Indigent Legal Services website.

This rate increase went into effect April 1, 2023.

“What we realized was, attorneys didn’t really see the impact — they knew the increase in rates was occurring, but people didn’t really begin to feel that in their pocketbooks — until late 2023 because they don’t invoice a case until the end of the case.”

“Now, they are looking at that increased income, and as they clear their calendar they go, ‘Yeah, give me some more cases,’ which we’re happy to oblige with, so I think we’re going to see continued improvement there,” Salisbury said.  

Department of Emergency Response to launch rapid response program

In the Department of Emergency Response (DoER), one of the main goals is the establishment of a backup dispatch center. This is a multiyear project; the new 911 center would serve as a backup in the event that the primary one becomes incapacitated. Construction should be completed by May 31, said Michael Stitley, director of DoER.

Another goal for 2024 is the launch of the county’s Rapid Medical Response program, and Sitley said the anticipated go-live date is April 1. The program will make three new vehicles available to respond to 911 calls in underserved areas of the county.

“I think it’s moving along nicely,” Stitley said, adding that the department plans to onboard staff this week and that he is pleased with the number of quality candidates who have applied to the program.

Tompkins County representatives are continuing to have meetings with officials from the city of Ithaca and Tompkins County’s towns to have further discussions about funding for 2025, “so hopefully we can make this sustainable in the years to come,” said Rich John, chair of the public safety committee.

A lack of EMTs has been an ongoing issue for Tompkins County, but Joe Milliman, Tompkins County EMS program director, said that at the time of the meeting a new cohort of EMTs was attending classes at a new training center at Cayuga Heath at Ithaca Mall.

“I don’t know the exact numbers, but I do know that they only had two available slots after [the class] began,” Milliman said.

Another 2024 goal for DoER is to establish and build a county fire training center/burn building in partnership with the airport.

District Attorney’s Office continues dashboard efforts

The maintenance and improvement of the District Attorney Data Dashboard, which is one of the main goals for the DA’s office, is going very well, reported Tompkins County District Attorney Matthrew Van Houten.

“We’re going to keep building the dashboard out based on community feedback and what we see other districts doing across the country,” Van Houten said at the committee meeting. “It’s an ongoing process.”

“It’s impressive,” commented John, and Van Houten said that the dashboard program has been widely recognized as top tier.

“Tiffany Ho, our data analyst, is doing a great job,” Van Houten said, adding that his office has been invited to share best practices with other district attorney’s offices in much larger cities, including Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

“And they see us as peers in terms of what we’re putting out there,” Van Houten said.

The dashboard gives an extensive look at the demographics of the jail population. One of its many features is a snapshot of the inmate demographics within the current week. For instance, on March 17, the dashboard reported that the largest segment of current inmates (26 out of 56) was being held awaiting felony pretrial proceedings.

Another dashboard feature: a breakdown of arrests by location. A quick look at this feature shows that the vast majority of sheriff’s department arrests between 2017 and 2022 were in the city of Ithaca, at 2,597 arrests. 

The town with the second-most arrests during those years was the town of Lansing (population 11,400), which had 763 arrests, followed by the town of Dryden (population 14,500), which has its own town police force. Dryden had 483 arrests. The town of Ithaca (population 19,700) followed with 297 arrests, then Groton (population 5,880) with 238, Newfield (population 5,100) with 153, and Enfield (population 3,480) with 113.

The dashboard also gives information about felony case outcomes and information data related to alternatives to incarceration and repeat offenders.

Van Houten also announced that the district attorney’s office has an opening for assistant district attorney and is casting a wide net for candidates to fill the position. For now, he said, the office will have to get by with one less attorney.

“We’ve been lucky not to have that situation for a while, but now we have it, and we’ll make it work,” Van Houten said.

Sheriff’s Office to see corrections supervisor retire, implementation of body cameras in jail

The Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office plans to implement a body-worn camera program for the jail in 2024 and is currently working to establish protocols and expectations.

“I think we’ll see positive results, for sure,” Captain Raymond Bunce, Tompkins County Corrections Division supervisor, said March 15. “I believe we’ll be able to use them quite often. …We’ll be able to investigate any complaints, and it works both ways: it will protect the office the same way it will protect the inmate.”

The jail already has six fixed cameras, but they do not capture audio and are not in the area of the inmates’ cells. The jail will be implementing a pilot program of 15 body cameras to start, Jennifer Olin, Tompkins County Undersheriff, said. 

The sheriff’s department is settling on its policies around the use of the new cameras, especially as it relates to when they will be turned on or off (the recordings take up too much digital storage space for the cameras to be recording all the time, Olin said). 

“Right now we’re drafting the policy, and we hope to have [the pilot program] up and running in the next three or four months,” Olin said. 

Bunce said he has not heard any pushback or opposition from jail employees regarding the program.

Bunce also said that he is planning to retire at the end of the year. At the committee meeting, Tompkins County Sheriff Derek Osborne said that Lauran Harrison, Steuben County Sheriff’s Department lieutenant, will take over the position of corrections supervisor. She officially joins the Tompkins County Sheriff’s Office April 1 and will work alongside Bunce for the remainder of 2024, Sheriff Derek Osborne said March 18. 

Bunce said he plans to continue living in Spencer, where he currently resides, as his children are growing their families in the area, and he is looking forward to spending time with his grandchildren and staying involved in the local community. 

Probation and Community Justice: Reducing gun-related violence and engaging in civil discourse 

Probation and community justice goals include engaging in the development and release of a Probation Community Dashboard to publicly provide transparency about important aspects of the office’s work, and continue to support the goals of the Reimagining Public Safety process.

The probation and community justice office plans to engage in trainings designed to enhance staff safety, client safety and the safety of the public.

Staff at the department will continue to work collaboratively with law enforcement partners toward the goal of reducing crimes of gun-related violence in Tompkins County and have applied for a continuation of New York State funding toward this goal during the GIVE XI grant cycle.

They will also continue the review and revision process for department policies and procedures and will work with Human Resources to update civil service job descriptions to reflect current New York state minimum training expectations.

Another goal is to work to enhance recruiting efforts in order to engage a more diverse civil service candidate pool and to engage in succession planning, staff development and employee retention.