Bristol Council Approves Creation of Public Safety Position

After slight delay Bristol Township Council, approved the creation of a new position to lead its police department at Thursday night’s council meeting.

With a 5-1 council vote to approve the move, (Councilman John Monahan voted no) the public safety director’s post, which would oversee the department’s 59 police officers, was created.

Township Manager Bill McCauley recently said 97 applications were received from across the country for the position since it was originally advertised in September.

McCauley noted  he met with the police union on Wednesday to discuss the ordinance. The motion was pulled from the council agenda last month after agreeing to meet with the police union.

Bristol Township Police Benevolent Association President Detective Tim  Fuhrmann told LevittownNow.com Friday the union was not pleased  with the move by the township.

“The Bristol Township Police Benevolent Association is very displeased with the Township of Bristol Council diminishing the importance of the position of the Chief of Police. It is irresponsible to the residents of Bristol Township to have their Police Department entrusted to a civilian who serves at the whim of the Township Manager instead of a sworn Police Officer,  who is held to a higher standard,” Fuhrmann said.

The union outlined four major issues it had with the creation of the position in a letter sent to township officials in November, among them using funds that could be used to hire patrol officers, violating the municipality’s status as a first class township and giving a non-sworn department head political sway over the police department.

McCauley called the claims by the PBA “laughable” and “bogus” last month. He pointed to the example of Bensalem Township, which is a second class township having “no issues,” since it adopted the public safety director post several years ago.

“I believe hiring a public safety director would be less expensive,” McCauley said. He added  there would be no police pension to pay and “no astronomical” retirement costs that are currently included in the police contract,” McCauley said the the claims by the union that it was against the law to create the job,  had an eight -page  legal opinion that says otherwise.

Officials said the ongoing process has trimmed down the list of prospects for the job through phone interviews and  hopes to  hire a candidate from the final list of two or three contenders soon.

The successful candidate  for the position will manage a 14 million dollar annual budget and will report to the township manager. Officials said the yearly salary for the  job of managing the department with 76  full time positions- which will include 61 officers by next year officials said- will fall into the low- to mid $100,000 range with benefits.