Tag: Chicago Police Dept.

Milwaukee Sheriff’s Says Arm Yourself

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. set off alarm bells Friday with a radio spot some view as a call for citizens to arm themselves.

In the radio ad, Clarke tells residents personal safety isn’t a spectator sport anymore, and that “I need you in the game.”

“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” Clarke intones.

“You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back.”

Clarke urges listeners to take a firearm safety course and handle a firearm “so you can defend yourself until we get there.”

“You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?”

via Milwaukee Journal Online.

Sound advice from a serious man.

Why is it in Chicago all we hear from McCarty and Rahm is that you cannot protect yourself?

When seconds count the police are just minutes away.

 

CPD Brass Wasting Money Trying to Track Gunshots

The Police Department began using gunshot detection technology early last month in two 1.5-square-mile areas to try to better pinpoint the location of gunshots, Superintendent Garry McCarthy disclosed Thursday. The sensors sometimes give officers information before 911 calls are made, he said.

In the past decade, the city twice installed the devices but ultimately removed them because of their high price tags and ineffectiveness. Since then the technology has improved “dramatically,” McCarthy said.

“What we can do with this is overwhelming right now,” McCarthy said at a news conference. “It’s gotten a lot better, and obviously as it’s out there longer, it’s a lot cheaper also.”

The one-year contract for the ShotSpotter system costs about $200,000 — money that will come from drug forfeitures and other property seized by police, authorities said.

via Chicago Tribune.

So it didn’t work before and was too expensive.  Boy, that’s not what we were told last time.

Given the success of the pilot program, in September 2003, Mayor Daley announced that a new phase of PODs would be deployed throughout the City. Subsequently, the number of PODs increased from 30 to 80 by December 2003. Some of the new second generation PODs were also equipped with technology to detect gunfire. Using wireless technology, these units transmitted gunshot alerts, as well as the usual video images, directly to the City’s Emergency Management and Communications Center, thereby providing crucial intelligence on criminal incidents involving guns. Several of the 30 existing PODs were also upgraded with the same technology during that time period.
— CPD Website, dated June 15, 2003

and

Chicago police plan to add 50 new remote-controlled cameras in city … The new cameras will be equipped with gunshot detectors….
— Herald & Review, dated April 7, 2004

and

Chicago police have installed 30 surveillance units in high-crime locales. The system uses four microphones to zero in on firearm discharges.
— USA Today, dated June 6, 2005

The USA Today article ends with:

Adding SENTRI to an existing surveillance camera is not cheap, however. The system costs between $4,000 and $10,000 per unit. In Chicago, money forfeited by criminals is used to pay for both it and the accompanying cameras.

As a result, Police Superintendent Phil Cline told a recent U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, “the drug dealers are actually paying to surveil themselves.”

I guess everything old is new again.

 

Mayor Booker Gives Rahm & McCarthy an Idea

This will be “policy” in Chicago within the next 12 months.

Controversial Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker wants to make an offer to local drug dealers that they can’t refuse.

Cory Booker and former New York Gov. David Paterson spoke Tuesday morning about recidivism and racism at a panel hosted by Stroock law firm.

One of Booker’s most shocking policies is dubbed a “call in,” something he borrowed from High Point, N.C. During a call in, police and other government officials meet with known drug dealers and try to convince them to choose another path.

“What we’ve decided to do in Newark is bring them all in and sit down with them and not have a ‘you’re going to get arrested’ conversation but ‘hey, this is the pros and cons,'” Booker said.

When the suspects come to the meeting, law enforcement has already collected evidence against them, including pictures of them dealing drugs.

“And we basically said to them, ‘you can work with us, we have people here with housing, jobs, everything possible,” Booker said. “Or you can go out and continue doing [crimes], but if there’s one shooting in this area again […] we will come in and find every reason that’s legally allowable to arrest everybody you know.'”

via Business Insider.

Now mind you, I’m not saying that it’s going to be a miserable failure… I’m just saying that Rahm and McCarthy are going to bring this forward as a new and creative idea all their own after the current policy is a demonstrated failure.

Quick Pension Analysis

Ok, so I was getting asked about this the other day both in person and in the comments about why the pensions are really in such bad shape and what the latest GASB positions mean to the funds.  GASB first.

GASB Changes
I did some poking around and the recent GASB changes really mean nothing.

After six years of research and about 400 pages of text, GASB’s statements 67 and 68 do little to provide enough meaningful information about the potential retirement costs faced by the taxpayers. The statements will force the worst of the worse, such as Illinois, to recognize a much larger liability.

That’s like throwing the zombified Walking Dead under the bus to give the appearance of taking a serious step in providing transparency. Zombies are already dead. You can throw them under a bulldozer; it doesn’t make them more dead.  …

The new standards still allow most pension funds to choose their discount rates when determining their pension liabilities. In other words, the sworn and civilian plans of the City of Los Angeles can wantonly throw caution to the wind and assume a 7.75% earnings assumption going forward, avoiding any consideration of risk.

via City Watch LA.

You can read the policy papers.  It’s pages and pages of nonsense summarized nicely with the zombie analogy above.

But what the lastest GASB changes point out to us is the danger regarding the assumed internal rate of return.

Interest Rate Issue
For giggles I found the 2011 annual report of the Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund.  It’s 116 pages detailing a underfunded, mismanagement, no financial understanding pension time-bomb with some lipstick.

From page 13:

As of June 30, 2011, investments at fair value plus cash totaled $10,456,912,118. This reflects a 16.8% increase from the $8,949,590,783 value of June 30, 2010. The Fund’s investment performance rate of return for the year ended June 30, 2011, was 24.8%, exceeding the projected return of 8% and reflecting a 82.3% increase from the 13.6% performance rate of return as of June 30, 2010. The ten-year rate of return posted by the Fund for the period ended June 30, 2011, was 5.7%, and fell short of the actuarial assumption of 8%.

That’s a lot of information.  I draw your attention to the incredible swings in the rate of return of the fund over the years.  24.8% one year, 13.6% another, however the 10-year average is a mere 5.7%.   On page 25 we learn that the 5-year average is only 4.7%.  Yikes!!  But the fund assumes that over the long term it will average 8%.

But what does that mean? So what?

Well, the fund currently has net assets of $10.344 billion.  When invested at the given rate of returns at the end of 5 years we have:

Year Value @ 4.7% Value @ 5.7% Value @ 8%
0 $10,344,100,000.00 $10,344,100,000.00 $10,344,100,000.00
1 $10,830,272,700.00 $10,933,713,700.00 $11,171,628,000.00
2 $11,339,295,516.90 $11,556,935,380.90 $12,065,358,240.00
3 $11,872,242,406.19 $12,215,680,697.61 $13,030,586,899.20
4 $12,430,237,799.29 $12,911,974,497.38 $14,073,033,851.14
5 $13,014,458,975.85 $13,647,957,043.73 $15,198,876,559.23

If the next 5 years are like the past 5 years the fund will earn 4.7% on its assets.  So in 5 years it will have $13.014 billion.

In the next 5 years are like the past 10 years the fund will earn 5.7% on its assets.  So in 5 years it will have $13.646 billion.

However the plan assumes that over the next 5 years it will follow the 8% column and have $15.1 billion.  History is against them.

If the fund earns 5.7% over the next 5 years it will be $1.55 billion short of projections.  That’s 10% less money available.

If the fund earns 4.7% over the next 5 years it will be $2.18 billion short of projections.  That’s 14% less money available.

If all the assumptions go on for 10 years:

Year Value @ 4.7% Value @ 5.7% Value @ 8%
10 $16,374,178,752.54 $18,007,050,537.73 $22,332,136,064.29

Earning 5.7% the fund is $4.33 billion short or 19.3%.

Earning 4.7% the fund is $5.95 billion short or 26.6%.

So if the next 10 years are anything like the past 10 years from an investment standpoint we can expect the all the state pension funds to have about 20% less money than they’re projecting.  That could easily be another $40-50 billion that someone’s going to come looking for.

– – –

Now in all fairness, a historic average suggest that a return rate of 8% could be reasonable.  i.e. These funds may be able to earn an 8% return in the next 5 years.  Why?

Interest Rates & Inflation.  In the last 5 – 10 years there has been very little inflation and interest rates have been low.  That’s generally accepted to be a good thing.  However it messes with the long-term analysis as to what something will be worth in the future.

Given the amount of debt carried by the Feds, and the quantitative easing (a/k/a money printing) that been happening, it’s safe to say that very soon interest rates are going to start going up… fast and dramatically.

When interest rates go up, the rate of return on these pension funds should go up as well.  If they get close to the 8%, then we’ll only have to worry about the current short fall of billions and billions and billions.

Any questions?

Ald. “New Tax” Cardenas Wants $5/mo

Chicago should impose a “safety and security fee” — as high as $5 a month on homes and businesses — to generate the $70 million needed to hire 700 additional police officers, an influential alderman said Thursday.

Ald. George Cardenas (12th), chairman of the City Council’s Health Committee, said Chicago desperately needs a surge in police hiring to ease a severe manpower shortage that has hamstrung the city’s ability to stop a surge in homicides and shootings.  …

Police and Fire are the very definition of general funds.  This is nothing more than a $60/year tax on everyone.

Fraternal Order of Police President Mike Shields said he would welcome “any new source of revenue” that could be used to bolster a police force that stands at 11,799 after a three-year hiring slowdown.

Through Aug. 15, 420 police officers had retired, but only 127 new officers had been hired, he said.

But, Shields said, “Why is it that we have to go to another source of revenue to pay for these officers? Policing is a basic city service that should be in the budget without a new fee. The mayor eliminated 1,252 police vacancies. The 2012 budget should not have been balanced at the expense of public safety. Those vacancies should have been filled.”   …

Cardenas is the aldermen who championed Chicago’s nickel-a-container tax on bottled water.He also proposed an anti-obesity plan to tax Chicago consumers of soda pop, energy drinks and other sugary beverages anywhere from 15 to 30 cents-a-contain to a penny-an-ounce.

via SunTimes.

How about we eliminate the TIFs and put all that money back into the general fund?  Then we’d have money for police, fire, and all kinds of other services.  Heck, we might even be able to fund the teachers’ pensions.

Ald. Cardenas, we’re taxed to death already!  Enough.