NH police budget and employment data (Grafton County) (Hanover Police Department)
| Multi Request | NH police budget and employment data (Grafton County) |
| Submitted | June 24, 2021 |
| Est. Completion | None |
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Communications
From: Granite State News Collaborative
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, Granite State News Collaborative
From: Hanover Police Department
Good morning Ms. Lipton ~
On June 25, 2021, we received your request for records pursuant to the NH Right to Know Law (RSA 91-A) relating to the Hanover Police Department’s hiring, employment and funding for the budget years 2000 through 2020.
We currently have the ability to pull most, if not all, of this information from digital records for the past 15 years (2006 to date). Obtaining records for the entire 20-year time period would substantially delay our response to your request, since our records prior to 2006 are paper files stored in boxes at an offsite location. It would require coordination among multiple departments and additional staff to locate and review files by hand for information relevant to your inquiry. If you would be willing to accept 15 years’ worth of data, we can more readily provide that to you. If you require the entire 20-year time period, we will need to coordinate with other departments to determine a reasonable timeframe to be able to pull this information together.
Please let me know if this 15-year timeframe would be acceptable. I will then follow up with an estimated date for providing you the requested information.
Sincerely,
Elizabeth Rathburn
Assistant to the Chief of Police
Hanover Police Department
46 Lyme Road
Hanover NH 03755
Phone: (603) 640-3327
Fax: (603) 643-0727
Download the Hanover NH Police Department mobile app from any mobile device:
https://apps.myocv.com/share/a53803755
From: Granite State News Collaborative
Hi Ms. Rathburn,
Thank you for responding to this request. My name is Cassidy Jensen and I'm a reporter at the Concord Monitor working on this project with Beryl. It would be great to obtain whatever information you have as it becomes available - so if the most recent data is available now, we would love to see those records. If this simplifies things, we are really looking for the following information for the years 2000, 2010 and 2020: the police department budget, how much was actually spent that year, the number of law enforcement officers employed and the demographics of those officers. If it's easier to pull just those three years (including spending recorded the following year), that fulfills the purpose of our request. Please let me know if you have any questions. You can reach me at 603-369-3322.
Thanks,
Cassidy Jensen
From: Muckrock Staff
To Whom It May Concern:
I wanted to follow up on the following New Hampshire Right to Know Law request, copied below, and originally submitted on June 25, 2021. Please let me know when I can expect to receive a response.
Thanks for your help, and let me know if further clarification is needed.
From: Hanover Police Department
To whom it may concern at Muckrock.com:
I am responding to your most recent correspondence, dated, Thursday, February 3, 2022, pertaining to your Right to Know Request (RTK)for certain information related to the Hanover Police Department. Your request has components that require the Town of Hanover Human Resources Department, which is why I’m responding to you rather than Elizabeth Rathburn. She and I are collaborating on this matter. We are happy to provide you materials consistent with statutory disclosure requirements (RSA 91-A).
First, I just want to quickly review the timeline of this particular request. The Hanover Police Department (HPD) received this RTK request from Beryl Lipton on behalf of the Granite State News Collaborative (GSNC) on or about June 25, 2021. Elizabeth Rathburn provided an initial response on HPD’s behalf on June 30, 2021. Ms. Rathburn noted in her response that the amount of time required to provide a full 20 years of material, as opposed to 15 years, since we do not have digital materials prior to 2006. Consequently, Ms. Rathburn asked whether it would be sufficient to provide 15 years worth of material instead. We received a reply to Ms. Rathburn’s inquiry on January 19, 2022, from Cassidy Jensen at the Concord Monitor, who indicated it would be sufficient for the the Police Department to provide information and records for the years 2000, 2010, and 2020.
We very much appreciate Ms. Jensen’s narrowing the scope of the original request. Based on available staff resources and time required to review and compile information for the years in question, I estimate that we can provide information and documents responsive to Ms. Jensen’s modified request by no later than close of business on Monday, February 28, 2022. We do not anticipate there being a problem responding before that date, but if for some unforeseeable reason we are unable to do so, we will provide you advance notice and seek a mutually agreeable time and date for submission.
Also, please note that Betsy McClain has retired from Town service, and that Tina Stearns is the Town’s Finance Director.
I will submit a copy of this response to the password protected portal.
Kind regards,
David W. Stewart
Human Resources Director
Town of Hanover
P.O. Box 543
Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: (603) 640-3208
Fax: (603) 290-5496
david.stewart@hanovernh.org<mailto:david.stewart@hanovernh.org>
While the contents of this communication are intended to be confidential, email sent to and from this address is subject to NH RSA 91-A (the NH Right-To-Know Law) and may, subject to certain exemptions, be subject to disclosure to third parties. Any unauthorized disclosure, reproduction, use or dissemination of this communication (either whole or in part) is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender immediately and delete the message from your system.
Files
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