Syracuse’s Common Council plans to vote next week on a proposal to renew technology services the city’s police department uses to investigate shootings.  

Along with the Syracuse Police Department technology, the council will vote on the possible addition of school resource officers to city schools and a potential bus contract for transportation to schools. 

At the Wednesday meeting, SPD First Deputy Chief Joe Cecile requested to renew a one-year subscription to Shotspotter, a gunfire tracking system. Cecile said the software has helped the police department investigate shootings in the city. 

Cecile said neighbors sometimes do not call in incidents of shots fired and police sometimes will not investigate shootings until the next day. 

When gunshot-like sounds are made, a signal gets sent to a database in California that can detect whether the shots are fireworks or actual gunshots, within three to five seconds. The signal is then triangulated to 911 with a location, and dispatchers can send officers to the location of the shots. 

Cecile also said many of the officers also have an application on their computers and phones that will send them the triangulated signal, which can lead to faster shooting response times.  

“In most cases, we are arriving on scene and finding the shell casings exactly where Shotspotter is telling us they are,” Cecile said. 

Currently, the software only covers about 1.2 square miles in the city, including parts of the South Side. Eventually, the police department would like to expand the software to cover the majority of the city, Cecile said. 

The current software costs $227,500, and Cecile said he would provide the council with a city-wide cost analysis. 

The police department is also asking the council to authorize a memorandum of understanding between the department and the Syracuse City School District to have police officers serve as school resource officers for three years, beginning in June 2018 and ending in June 2021. 

Currently, there are officers at Syracuse high schools and the Institute of Technology at Syracuse Central. 

Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens said the city is ready to feasibly deploy as many officers as possible to the school district. 

Common Council President Helen Hudson said that numbers are down in the police department, and asked where the officers would come from. Cecile said the school officers will be officers that are currently employed by the department.  

In addition to school resource officers, the city currently has a three-year contract on behalf of the SCSD with First Student Inc., a bus company, to provide bussing for students. The school district is requesting for the council to authorize a three-year contract renewal with the company, which would run from Sept. 1, 2018 to Aug. 31, 2021. 

Suzanne Slack, chief financial officer for the SCSD, said rates on the contract with the bus company can increase by up to 5 percent each year. 

Councilor Susan Boyle, of the 3rd district, noted that she has gotten many calls from her constituents with complaints about First Student buses not picking up students, or showing up an hour late. 

“I’ve never received so many calls with busing complaints at the beginning of the year, and I just wondered if we’re really that satisfied with the service that First Student is providing,” said Boyle, who also serves as the chairperson for the council’s Education and Human Development committee. 

Slack said there’s a national shortage of bus drivers, but First Student has accessed more drivers for this school year. Overall, she said, the district is more satisfied with the service than they have been in previous years. 

She added there are service standards in the contract, and in 2017 the school district invoked fines and penalties on the company when they didn’t have enough drivers, enough buses or were late consistently without making improvements.

Published on October 3, 2018 at 9:36 pm

Contact Dakota: dapalmer@syr.edu