Form revised April 10, 2006

FISCAL NOTE FOR NON-CAPITAL PROJECTS

Department:	Contact Person/Phone:	DOF Analyst/Phone:
Legislative	Peter Harris / 4-8368	n.a.

Legislation Title:

A resolution supporting timely complaint investigations by the Police Department Office of Professional Accountability.

· Summary of the Legislation:

This resolution requests the OPA Auditor, OPA Director and OPA Review Board to recommend standards for the timeliness of OPA complaint investigations; requests the Chief of Police to propose a plan or plans for achieving these standards; and requests the OPA Auditor and OPA Director to routinely report on whether the effort to achieve timeliness is jeopardizing thoroughness or fairness.

· Background: (Include brief description of the purpose and context of legislation and include record of previous legislation and funding history, if applicable):

In her May 2006 report the Office of Professional Accountability Auditor stated that the Office of Professional Accountability (OPA) cannot be expected to complete investigations in a timely way with its existing investigative staff and workload, and that time lag in complaint investigations makes the OPA process less than meaningful to citizens.  In her Spring 2006 report on OPA Complaint Statistics for 2004 and 2005 the OPA Director pointed to an increase in the length of investigations to an average of 119 days in 2005, which is more than 25% longer than the average of the previous five years.

· Please check one of the following:

__x__ This legislation does not have any financial implications. (Stop here and delete the remainder of this document prior to saving and printing.)

The information requested by this resolution may lead to a separate decision that the OPA should have additional resources in order to improve the timeliness of complaint investigations, but the resolution in and of itself does not have any financial implications.