The position of civilian director was introduced as a way to save money. Former Chief Steven Nienstedt, who retired in December of last year, drew a total yearly salary of $182,616 (including base pay, longevity pay, and detective and degree bonuses), making him the highest paid employee in the borough. The new director position would pay $82,000 per year with no benefits.

Detective Michael Garner presented the council with a breakdown of how much money it would cost the department to promote a chief from within the department. According to Garner's estimate, promoting a new chief would only cost the borough $71,513, the total cost of the increases that would result from promoting a captain to chief, a lieutenant to captain, a sergeant to lieutenant and a patrolman to sergeant. This figure is $10,487 less than the civilian police director salary proposed in the two ordinances.

Council president and liaison to the police department John Genovesi presented another estimate, however. If promotions were to be made all the way up the chain of command, the department would be left with one less patrol officer. Genovesi kept Garner's numbers but added the additional cost of hiring another patrol officer. In what borough Chief Financial Officer Ed Cortright called a conservative estimate, Genovesi determined that another patrol officer would add an additional $69,892 ($45,392 in salary, $24,500 in health insurance coverage) expense to the department, making the cost of promoting a chief $59,405 more than that of hiring a civilian director. There are 37 officers currently in the department, which by borough code should be 43. Policeman's Benevolent Association (PBA) representative Russell Snyder made the point that if the borough promotes one of them to chief there will still be 37 officers, but if the town creates a civilian director, there will be 37 officers plus a director.

Genovesi's claim was that it was unrealistic to think that a chief could be promoted without the department hiring a new patrolman to fill the vacancy left by the subsequent promotions.

"They're already stretched as it is," said Genovesi. "You can't just do away with that bottom position... You can get away with not having a chief, [but] right now you can't get away with taking a patrolman off the street."

Either way, the department is still six officers short of the 43 required by the department's own table of organization. Genovesi said the possibility of changing the ordinance to reduce the number of officers required hasn't been considered and that he personally thinks it should remain as it is. "What this department requires and what the borough can afford are two different things," said Genovesi.

According to Cortright, if the officers who were dismissed in the wake of the Santana case were to return to their posts and receive compensation for their time away, the borough would be faced with an additional expense of at least $450,000 for 2007. The officers' salaries have been tentatively added to the 2008 budget.

Both the officers' and the councilman's estimates also ignore pension contributions. Both officers and the borough pay into pension the fund for the duration of that officer's employment. The size of the contributions from both parties increases as the officer's salary increases; hence promoting a chief from within would increase the contributions the borough would be required to make for several officers. Once officers are retired, the borough essentially no longer pays into the fund for that officer, though a certain amount is still required, which is based on the size of the department and the unfunded ratio of the Policeman and Fireman's Retirement System as a whole, according to Tom Vince, a spokesman for the Treasury Department.

One resident who spoke at the Feb. 19 meeting proposed promoting a chief by promoting one of the captains but not hiring a new one, thus reducing the number of captains by one and preventing a reduction in the number of patrolman. The same suggestion was proposed by councilman George Fecanin at the council's Jan. 15 work session. In both instances Genovesi replied that doing so would shift the burden of two captains' responsibilities onto one. However, Garner and Snyder stated that without a chief, certain responsibilities have already been pushed down onto the captains. The officers claimed this would continue if a civilian director were appointed, due to the limitations in his powers. A document submitted to the mayor and council by the NJSACP refers to an arbitrated grievance filed in Montgomery Township in which two top officers were granted additional compensation for the increase in work caused by the appointment of a civilian director.