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Springfield Mayor Domenic J. Sarno at a 2010 press conference announcing the members of the then-new Community Police Hearing Board.

(The Republican / Michael S. Gordon)

Springfield's civilian police hearing board has not released its annual statistical report in nearly two years, due to what city officials describe as a shortage of manpower in the city's legal office.

The Community Police Hearing Board, established by the executive order of Mayor Domenic Sarno in 2010, is required to "publicly disseminate" notice of complaints against officers reviewed by the board.

But no statistics on the number of cases heard, the type of incidents alleged or whether those complaints were sustained have been released since March of 2014.

City Solicitor Edward Pikula, whose office is responsible for compiling incident numbers, scrubbing them of private information and releasing the annual report, said a glut of legal work linked to the MGM Springfield project has left his office unable to complete the reports on time.

"I just didn't have the manpower," Pikula said. 'I've been so tied up with trying to get this MGM stuff wrapped up that I haven't been able to get to it."

In fact, the board is required to provide public notice of cases every quarter -- which it has never succeeded in doing, Pikula said.

The board was supposed to rely on Citistat, a now-defunct city department established when Springfield was run by a financial control board, to compile information for those quarterly reports. But that initiative never got off the ground, and the city has attempted to release information each year instead, according to Pikula.

Pikula now plans to release a two-year report on police complaints this year, similar to when incidents for 2012 and 2013 were combined into one report. The back-up was on the legal department's end, Pikula confirmed, saying that the board and the police department's internal affairs unit were timely in providing incident information.

The delay has left Springfield residents without any information on the number or severity of complaints against officers since 2013, or whether those complaints were found to be justified. The absence of information has coincided with both a push for community engagement by the Springfield Police Department and growing national tension over allegations of police violence against minority populations.

That tension has made itself felt in Springfield as well; last April, more than a dozen Black Lives Matter activists were arrested after they blocked the X intersection to protest police killings.

The seven-member Community Police Hearing Board was created in 2010 and replaced former Mayor Charles Ryan's Community Complaint Review Board, which lacked the current board's subpoena powers. Sarno's executive order came in the shadow of the beating of black motorist Melvin Jones III by police officer Jeffrey Asher, who was later convicted of assault in connection with the beating.

All the board's members are appointed by Sarno, and it does not have the independent authority to discipline officers. Police officials have said, however, that the department has always followed the board's recommendations on cases.

The commission's members regularly meet in a second-floor conference room at Springfield police headquarters to hear allegations against officers. The proceedings are generally closed to the public; the executive order requires officers' consent for the hearings to be open, and the commission is likewise prohibited from disclosing the names of involved parties without their agreement.

As an all volunteer board, the CPHB relies on the city to both release its reports and organize community outreach, board chair George Bourguignon told MassLive. The board does hold quarterly public meetings; those are generally ill-attended, he said.

"We don't have our own administrative staff. We rely on the resources of the city," he said. "It's not our function, as far as the board. We have to sit back and wait for what the law department puts before us."

As recommended in its 2014 report, the board has held several meetings at neighborhood councils to spread word of its operations. Those efforts have been organized by Denise Jordan, Sarno's Chief of Staff and the city's liaison to the board.

"The main part of what we do is to make our recommendations," Bourguignon said. "We're just people volunteering out time to make good recommendations."

Jordan said that the city made efforts at outreach in 2014, sending messages to all 28 neighborhood councils in the city asking if they would like to host an information session on the board for local residents. Only four responded, she said -- Old Hill, Pine Point, New North, and Sixteen Acres. The board held meetings in those neighborhoods.

"We've gone out to the neighborhoods, we've gone out to the community to let them know what we do," Jordan said. "Their answer was they know what we do. They didn't feel the need to do another meeting."

"We have to do better. We've been averaging a report every two years," she added. "What I can say is that the board as a body, they review cases and they're in contact with the police department every single week."

Outreach aside, the lack of reports has left the past two years a blank slate for anyone seeking data about complaints against the department. The 2014 report said that in 2013 92 complaints were made compared to 175,000 calls for service and 3,952 arrests; of those complaints, eight were sustained.