LONG BRANCH - The city will spend $43,900 on outside consultants to conduct a top-to-bottom evaluation of the police department.

The review will consider the department's training protocols, financial budgets, organizational structure, discipline, labor contracts, personnel policy, grievances filed and community relations, among others.

The consultant group Government Strategy Group, based in Shrewsbury, will also interview the mayor and council, police chief, business administrator, city professionals and department heads.

"I want to make clear it's not a negative reflection of the police department," Mayor John Pallone said. "One of the things we talked about when I was elected was doing reviews of all the departments."

Pallone, the brother of U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., D-New Jersey, is in his first year as mayor.

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The police department has come under public scrutiny in the last couple of years for the actions of its officers on an off duty.

In 2016, eight officers were suspended for reportedly sleeping on the job.

Last year, former police Detective Jake Pascucci was sentenced to a year in jail after he was convicted in a 2017 drunken-driving crash on Ocean Avenue while off duty that claimed the life of a Stanhope woman.

Earlier this month, ex-cop Patrick Joyce Jr. was given a year of probation for groping a woman at an off-duty police party in February. Joyce, drunk at the time of the incident, agreed to forfeit his job.

The victim filed notice in April that she intends to sue the city and its police department for more than $1 million.

Police Chief Jason Roebuck said he was not part of the city administration's decision to conduct the review. In 2018, Roebuck became the city's first police chief in 50 years after the city eliminated the Public Safety Director position he held since 2013.

"As long as it's conducted by reputable professionals I don't have a problem with it," Roebuck said of the review.

About 20 percent of city's 2019 $59.3 million budget is dedicated to the police department, which has over 90 officers for a city of roughly 30,000 people. In the most recent uniform crime report from the state of New Jersey, the city reported 973 crimes in 2018.

The report did not include data from December.

Government Strategy Group will conduct the review, from July 1 through June 30, 2020.

When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; dradel@gannettnj.com