horses

did anyone checkout the Beacon article where we are now adding a city owned horse to the stable. please take a look at the costs for having this horse, plus the others we are paying to maintain that are someone elses pets. thousands of dollars are being spent so the movies can have private security on fri nights? there is more money and manpower hours being wasted at our PD, while other agencies have cut their wasteful spending and eliminated their horse program. we are being force fed another garbage contract with no money, reduced benefits, and pension losses, yet we have tens of thousands of dollars laying around each year to support trailers, stables, vet bills, etc for a couple officers and their pets

Shoulda kept the motorbikes and fired me!

Sorry, you got some bad intel. The private horses are all paid for by their owners. Equipment is purchased buy the PD after fundraisers are held by volunteers and the alumni association.

That is plan for the costs of the city horse as well. Donations for most of the supplies have already been received.

Guess someone didn't have all their facts. ops:

who pays the ot, shortage of manpower on patrol, and horse officers salary while they are training, cleaning, maintaininng or riding their horses at the mall or at a rodeo in another county??

Up until this point, the officers who VOLUNTEER for the mounted patrol, train, equip, feed, board etc. their own horse on their own time or they borrow someones horse that has already been trained or is trainable. That normally means at least one 2-3 hour training session per week that is strictly voluntary and unpaid. The do however get paid to work at the mall and other locations but that is duty time and they adjust their schedule as allowed by their supervisors. They don't get paid ot to work these extra assignments, and I know normally OT is not needed to cover their shifts.

However, I do know this. If it wasn't for the patrols down their on the weekends, zone one would be handling alot more calls for service at the mall and surrounding areas.

Ha....nice try on not getting OT and that it is scheduled into their normal duty day. If you had access to see the build up of comp time that is accrued you would know that is not the case. I am not talking your normal build of from invests, traffic court, and being held over for shift coverage. I am talking the extra details of working the movies, Ybor, and oh maybe riding the beaches in Tarpon Springs. Oh and what happens when you are max'd out you get paid. So don't gimme this BS about normal duty hours and schedule adjustments, it's not happening. Plus you may put the time in your comp bank but a simple email to the Chief's secretary puts it right into your check. Oh and what about the time spent coming in on their off time to finish reports. Does the normal patrol officer get that luxury, no they get a letter in their pending file. This goes way beyond just getting a free horse which is gonna cost the city thousands to up keep. I think they should just send the whole lot to the glue factory and save all of us the grief and aggravation. Plus what other unit in the agency can you use your privaltely owned hobby to fill your comp bank. Oh one last point before I go, when a certain Captain retires the whole pony show will go by the way side. And then we can send out another teletype letting other agencies know we have free horse crap to give away. What a waste of man hours and money.

I disagree, other agencies are starting a mounted patrol and it is good we have one. Who cares who gets what as far as OT & comp, we are having trouble filling the OT board. I don't care what others get, I just do my job & worry about myself, if I want OT I sign up for it. Wouldn't it me silly of me to worry about other officers and what they are getting? We are all adults.

Yeah ok, "adults". We here at the park have the in's and out's. If it's what certain members of our mighty ADM want, then that’s what we get. Were not a police department were a private army for certain people. They crap on officers and feed us bull, just try to stay on their good side our you will regret it. I think the horses are like the Cpl. program, it needs to go away and stop wasting money that could provide better salaries to the patrol officers.

Who are these mounted officers gonna chase, Jesse James? No matter who pays, mounted patrols are a wasteful fulfillment of someone's childhood fantasy.