Small Town News

Pinal County Sheriffs Office focuses on service

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Grants worth over $6.8 million are now supporting equipment, training; and technology upgrades at Pinal County Sheriff's Office. These grants are allowing the agency to keep upgrading and improving service despite budget cuts.

This story is the second in a two-part series on the Pinal County Sheriff's Office (PCSO). The first wa published on Feb. 10, 2010. It covered challenges and changes in our growing county.

Responding to the challenges, like booming populations and outdated equipment, may have been difficult if not for the 44 current grants.

A new grant administrator, Tim Gaffney, joined the agency in March 2009. He has helped the agency find missed funding opportunities and apply for grants. Scott Elliot, Lieutenant of regions B and C, said that the new position was a plus. "The addition of a grant administrator was well overdue and has proven to secure a lot funding-that we have missed in the past," he said.

Grants have been awarded for improvements like new radios, computers for cars, a DUI van, motorcycles, and additional training.

Doug Brown, Region A lieutenant, said that the upgraded computers in patrol cars serve many purposes. "The computer in the car allows deputies to see exactly what the dispatcher enters into the computer. So the deputies have a jumpstart. They get the information in real time," he said.

He also said that the computer's mapping system has helped tremendously because paper maps get outdated quickly in our growing county. The computers will also allow deputies to spend less time in an office.

"In the very near future deputies will be able to write reports in the car," he said. "The deputy won't have to drive 10-15 miles from where he's working. He'll be able to stay in the beat and use the computer and if a call comes in he can respond instantly. Our response time is going to be quicker which is very important in emergencies," said Brown.

Sheriff Paul Babeu uses response time as a benchmark of how well changes at the agency are working. "When you call you could care less about computers in cars, you're concerned about how quick we'get there," Babeu said.

"Before we came in it was 15 minutes plus for a priority one (drop everything we need to get there) call. Now at January '10 we're at 12.5 minutes. Often times we get there quicker. Our goal is to eventually get to 10 minutes," he said.

Contributing to improved response time is the new beat system. The agency has defined beats within three regions in the county. "We have 18 beats and in those beats there should always be a deputy," Babeu said.

Lieutenant Tamatha Villar, public information officer, said that the beat system is similar to what is done in cities. "If you assign somebody to a particular beat they're going to know the crime, the area, and the people, and the people are going to know them," she said.

"And if you assign a deputy to a specific beat they can respond faster and we've seen improvements in response time and service," said Villar.

Availability of public records has also been enhanced to improve service. Reports used to be available only at PCSO's Florence headquarters. Copies of reports can now be obtained at five substations around the county, including San Manuel. "Also in another 30-45 days you'll be able to go online to get accident reports for a small fee," Babeu said.

All the changes being made at PCSO come back to improved service. "The key components from the very beginning have been improved training for all our deputies and all of our staff, all designed to result in improved service," said Babeu.

Many PCSO employees now have current first aid training. "We've made a big deal about first aid and CPR training. We trained over 500 employees," he said.

First aid training is important because deputies are often the first people to arrive on the scene. "Some of us hadn't had first aid training in 10 years," said Brown. Brown said that since the training there have been cases where deputies arrived first at a scene and performed CPR until emergency medical personnel arrived. The patients were then turned over to the medical personnel and survived.

'*[ remember the deputies making comments that they really felt good about having the training and being able to sustain life in those instances," Brown said.

"I think we're improving everyday," he said. "I think the deputies are getting better everyday."



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