NH police budget and employment data (Sullivan County) (Claremont Police Department)

To Whom It May Concern:

Pursuant to the New Hampshire Right to Know Law, I respectfully request the following records related to this municipality's police department hiring, employment, and funding for the budget years 2000 through 2020:

BUDGET and FUNDING DATA - Records sufficient to show funding for municipal law enforcement offices and activities for the years 2000 through 2020.

If possible, please provide the itemized budget allocated for public safety and police department activities for each year, as well as records sufficient to show any additional funding received through other means, including but not limited to:
• funds for capital expenditures
• grants
• donations

HIRING and EMPLOYMENT DATA - Records sufficient to show the following data regarding police department employment for the years 2000 through 2020.
• The number of employed law enforcement officers (as defined by RSA 105-D:1). Please provide the date on which the provided numbers were accurate.
• Annual demographic information (age, race, gender) of law enforcement officers employed by this municipality
• Annual demographic information (age, race, gender) of any individual employed in a position of leadership within this municipality’s public safety or law enforcement department

If any of the requested information is available in aggregate form, provision of this aggregate information by year would likely satisfy this request. If there are any known caveats involved with the data and information your office is able to provide, I would really appreciate it if you could share them with me.

*Please note* that if any of the requested information is held by another office or agency, direction to the appropriate office would be greatly appreciated.

This request is being made on behalf of the statewide nonprofit Granite State News Collaborative. This request is not being made for commercial purposes. It is being made as part of a journalistic data collection effort to benefit news organizations and the public good throughout the State of New Hampshire.

If your office anticipates that fees associated with the processing of this request, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request be filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.

Please call 617-500-7123 with any questions about this request. If your call is not answered, please leave a message and your call will be returned as soon as possible.

I look forward to receiving your response to this request within five business days, as required by law.

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I really appreciate your time and help.

Sincerely,

Beryl Lipton

Hello —

This New Hampshire Right to Know Law request has been mailed to the Claremont Police Department, but we haven't received an acknowledgement. This request will soon be used as part of a story that will feature the responses we have received from departments, and it's not clear why no response has been provided in this instance. Could you please help to clarify or redirect this request appropriately?

Thank you for your time and help.

Beryl Lipton
617-500-7123

Hi Chief Chase,

Thank you for this response. My name is Cassidy Jensen and I'm a reporter at the Concord Monitor. My colleague Beryl Lipton sent this original Right to Know request.

I'm writing to follow up on our phone conversation today. As we discussed, we are requesting in particular the following information for the years 2000,2010 and 2020: the number of employed law enforcement officers, including whether they were in leadership roles (captain, chief, deputy chief), and the ages, gender and race information for officers employed in those years. If officers left or were hired during those three years, I would like the numbers as of July 1 of each of those years. Please feel free to call me at 603-369-3322 with any questions.

Thanks.
Cassidy Jensen
The Concord Monitor

Hi Mark,

Thank you so much for compiling this information for us. One more follow-up -any chance you know how many of these officers were part-time vs. full-time?

Thanks again,
Cassidy

Cassidy Jensen
The Concord Monitor
603-369-3322