GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Grand Rapids’ apparent dependence on outside consultants to analyze its police department for the sake of improving community-police relations has created a sense of “paralysis by analysis.”

Since 2016, Grand Rapids has green-lighted five independent studies of the police department, which cost a combined $633,529. Two of those studies have concluded, while three remain ongoing.

Additionally, city leaders have expressed interest in three more reviews of the police department in the future, including studies of arrest and traffic stop data, and a review of “potential investments in evidence-based violence reduction” by Grand Valley State University.

Despite all the studies, the city commission has yet to make a final decision on whether to hire additional police officers, one of the key items referenced for conducting the studies.

Police union leaders have spoken out against the series of studies. While the police department has accepted each outside review, Police Chief David Rahinsky has repeatedly asked the city commission for more officers to free up staff and allow for more non-enforcement contacts as a means of building trust in the community.

At current staffing, Rahinsky said, officers are unable to provide the level of community policing that the public and city leaders have asked for.

When the city commission approved spending almost $100,000 on a staffing and deployment study last month to have a consultant determine how staffing levels should be addressed, Third Ward Commissioner Senita Lenear pushed back. She said every consultant appears to recommend another consultant, sending the city through a “never-ending ‘paralysis by analysis’ state until all the money is gone.”

Has it been money well spent?

"I don't have enough information to tell you if it's been money well spent," Lenear said. "I haven't gotten any data on who has been impacted, how they've been impacted, what cultural changes have been made. And that could be part of why I'm frustrated. I don't have enough information to indicate if what we've already spent is making the impact we're trying to make."

Third Ward Commissioner Senita Lenear listens during a city commission meeting at City Hall in Grand Rapids on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2018. Neil BlakeNeil Blake

Talk of “paralysis by analysis” has reached Rahinsky.

He said there’s been value to each consultant’s work, but he’d like to see the city start relying on “internal expertise to help drive decision-making” following the conclusion of the 12-week staffing and deployment study.

"I've heard that, and I think that's where we're at," Rahinsky said. "It's good we've reached that recognition collectively saying ‘enough.’ The public has had more than ample time to help drive direction and now we're ready to implement some of those directives."

The studies

In 2015, Grand Rapids leaders adopted a 12-point plan to strengthen community-police relations. Included in the plan were recommendations to hire consultants to conduct an arrest disparity study and a traffic stop study to determine if there are disparate outcomes as a result of Grand Rapids Police Department policies and procedures.

The city elected to go with the traffic stop study first, and paid Lamberth Consulting $157,810 to analyze stop data from 2013 to 2015.

The study’s finding: black drivers were twice as likely to be stopped by police in Grand Rapids than non-black drivers, based on their makeup of the driving population. Black drivers were also searched at a higher rate, and Hispanic drivers too were more likely to be stopped, according to the study.

Among Lamberth Consulting’s 12 recommendations was for Grand Rapids to do a comprehensive review of the police department’s policies and procedures, and to conduct an additional traffic stop study of data from 2016 and beyond.

In July 2017, three months after the traffic study published, Grand Rapids contracted with 21st Century Policing Solutions for $181,000 to lead a review of the department’s policy manual.

“The steady stream of studies, criticism and direct policy and procedure investigations has had a deleterious affect on police officers and command staff,” police union leaders said in a 2017 joint statement.

“The redundancy of these studies and the money the commission is spending seem at odds with what the best methods of collaborative management should look like. They are hiring consultants to give them information that they should already know. Our chief has created the most transparent operation any of us can remember.”

The year-long review by the task force and 21st Century Policing resulted in 38 recommendations from a community-police task force and an additional eight recommendations from the consulting firm.

Among the suggestions to city officials was a call for a comprehensive staffing and deployment study to evaluate the current beat configuration and assess current and future staffing needs of the department.

In response to that recommendation, the city commission last month approved spending $99,719 on a contract with the Chicago-based consulting firm Hillard Heintze, LLC to conduct the 12-week study.

Along the way, the city also agreed in April to spend $187,500 on a contract with the tech organization Elucd for a surveying service to gauge public trust and satisfaction regarding the police department, and in June to spend $7,500 for an assessment by the Chicago-based anti-violence program Cure Violence.

Elucd’s surveying, which was initiated by Rahinsky, will provide the police department with survey data monthly. Cure Violence will send representatives to Grand Rapids this month to determine if the city is a good fit to adopt its non-traditional model for violence prevention.

Money set aside for community-police relations

In June 2017, the city commission earmarked $1 million per year for five years to be used to improve community-police relations. The discussion had commissioners split on how to spend the money, with some in favor of it being used to add officers.

The $5 million funding was not allocated for a specific expenditure, but it was based on the cost of what it would take to hire at least five police officers at the cost of about $125,000 per officer per year.

Since beginning to set aside that money, the city has used about $594,628 of the $2 million available for fiscal years 2018 and 2019. That includes:

21st Century Policing’s policy review – $181,000

Elucd’s trust/satisfaction survey software – $187,500

Hillard Heintze’s staffing and deployment study – $99,719

Cure Violence’s assessment – $7,500

Franklin Covey’s “Policing at the Speed of Trust” program – $92,360

MILO’s range training system (youth interaction scenarios) – $9,995

Community listening sessions – $16,554

Three of the expenditures -- Elucd, MILO and “Policing at the Speed of Trust” -- were initiated by Rahinsky and approved by the city commission.

None of the money has gone to adding more officers.

“No single one cost was insurmountable, but collectively it’s not a small number," Rahinsky said. “Moving forward, I want to see that earmarked money go to adding personnel.”

Rahinsky, who recently announced his retirement, has asked for more officers almost since he took the reins of the department in summer 2014. The department has 295 sworn officers – down 23 percent from 2002 when the city’s population was close to where it’s at today.

Most vocal about his support for adding more officers has been First Ward Commissioner Jon O’Connor. He voted last month in favor of spending almost $100,000 for the staffing study, but he said he did so reluctantly.

"The chief has asked, and he is our expert," O'Connor said. "We hired him to run the police department and be the policing expert. When he comes to the table and says we need more officers, and no one will listen, there's a disconnect there.

“I’m more than willing to allocate more resources for additional staffing based on his recommendation. If my colleagues aren’t willing and able to make that decision and the deployment and staffing study is the tool to get them to a ‘yes,’ then so be it.”

O’Connor said he doesn’t see the studies as a waste of money. But he has said he won’t vote to spend any more from the community relations fund until the city considers adding more officers.

"I certainly have some frustration in the amount of money we've spent on studies rather than spending on putting boots on the ground and adding more men and women in blue to our uniformed ranks," O'Connor said. "At the end of the day there isn't one solution but some of those dollars, in my opinion, should have been allocated to adding more officers."

Lenear was the lone voice in opposition of the external 2018 staffing and deployment study. She spoke out against the contract, not because she opposes the analysis, but because she said the city has the internal resources to do its own analysis instead of spending money that could be used elsewhere.

“I just want to move forward with something and, in some ways, I feel as though the studies are like a stall tactic,” Lenear said. “So, there’s no way to be held accountable.”

The police chief has seen the community relations fund be chipped away in increments over the last two years. But he said each expenditure has been important in improving transparency and community trust in the police force.

Has it been money well spent?

“That’s a difficult question to answer,” Rahinsky said. “What price do you put on transparency and trust? If Franklin Covey helped build relationships with people who we didn’t already have that with; if Elucd gives us insight on how we’re perceived in all segments of our community; if 21st Century Policing helps us modify a youth policy that prevents issues in the future, I’d say wholeheartedly it’s been successful. That’s my gut. Yes, you don’t always see tangible, immediate return on those types of investments, but I think it’s very important and very worthwhile."

Attempts by MLive/The Grand Rapids Press to contact Grand Rapids police union representatives for this story were unsuccessful.