In our small town, our city manager publishes a weekly report that he calls, helpfully, the City Manager’s “Weekly Report.” (He includes the quotation marks, presumably so that we know that “Weekly Report” is just a term of art for a weekly report.)
I read it each week, and if I stopped, I wonder if readership would plunge by one-third.
We are a town where there is great emphasis on producing good news, especially from and about a small local clique. Whitewater’s city manager, Kevin Bruner, gave a published interview recently in which he declared that the role of the city manager was to be a “cheerleader’ for the city.
Someone else might aspired to the model of impartial executive, or fair administrator, but I suppose some town in America was destined to find itself with cheerleading as its chief executive’s desired role.
Unfortunately, it’s the chief executive of my town.
Since being a cheerleader requires a positive message, you can guess that unfavorable news – no matter how true – might be discussed less frequently here.
We might try a motto to this effect: “Whitewater: Where the Only News is Good News.”
What happens, though, when the desire for good news is so strong that even suspect studies, reports, and events are presented as municipal triumphs?
That’s what happened when the June 27th weekly report had a proud announcement about the per capita cost of our local police force. The Wisconsin Taxpayer’s Alliance completed a study of the cost of municipal police forces across Wisconsin.
Here’s some of the Whitewater city manager said about the study:
Also, from a report issued recently by the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, the Whitewater Police Department ranks below the state-wide average for cities over 11,400 population in police expenditures per capita and slightly higher than the average number of officers per capita…
The average number of officers per capita was 1.33 per 1,000 people whereas Whitewater’s number per capita was 1.65. The highest number of officers in the State is in Milwaukee with 3.30 with Glendale a close second at 3.25 officers per 1,000 residents.
Unfortunately, our city manager provided no link to the study’s underlying data. No matter – blogger’s were made for Web surfing, and I found the study quickly.
Here’s the webpage link: http://www.wistax.org/facts/
Here’s the link to the Excel sheet with the statewide results:
http://www.wistax.org/facts/2006%20Municipal%20Police.xls
There are just three problems:
(1) The data are from 2006. Since then we have added a sworn officer, so our force is larger than the Wisconsin Taxpayer’s Alliance’s information.
(2) The data include only sworn officers (minus one addition), but we also have a staff of community service officers, who perform many tasks of officers, but do not have arrest powers. Some communities may not have these officers, but for Whitewater, they are part of the payroll, and play a role that covers much of what an officer might otherwise do in a day.
(3) We are a campus town, and although that means we have students among our total numbers, it also means the support of an additional campus police force that the study does not take into account. That force is not present in non-campus communities, and does not add to overall police numbers the way ours does.
If you received this study, knowing – as you must – these three things, what would you do?
You might (1) ignore the study, (2) you might publish its results with fair commentary about the limitations of the data, or (3) run it straight, with no link to the data for easy citizen review.
If you’re a politician in Whitewater, Wisconsin, it’s number (3), no doubt at all.