This two-part series was published by The Ball State Daily News
THE UNIVERSITY POLICE DEPARTMENT is a familiar sight on Ball State’s campus. They patrol the square around campus — from Wheeling Avenue to Tillotson Avenue to White River Boulevard to McGalliard Road.
Muncie Police Department, on the other hand, has jurisdiction all through the city.
But even with UPD’s smaller area of jurisdiction, UPD officers get more training and are paid more.
The Ball State Daily News reported a two-part series on the differences, why Ball State officers receive more training and are paid more than their Muncie counterparts. We used records UPD, MPD and from the Ball State Board of Trustees and the City of Muncie to produce this series.
University gets more training than Muncie officers
They patrol what amounts to a small city, but there’s nothing small about the long hours of training that campus police have to complete in order to carry their badges — requirements that often exceed those in the surrounding city of Muncie.
“The officers are always expanding their knowledge and their abilities,” said Lt. David Bell of Ball State’s University Police Department. “We have some officers who have over 200 hours of training. It definitely prepares those in our department for a wide range of scenarios.”
The University Police Department and others like it around the country have a come a long way from the days when many schools simply hired security guards. Today, they’re sworn officers – and like police everywhere, their role sometimes falls into sharp public focus.
This summer an officer at the University of Cincinnati shot an unarmed man during a routine traffic stop and was charged with murder.
A dozen years ago at Ball State, a UPD police officer shot and killed an unarmed student while responding to a reported burglary. The officer had been on the force for seven months and had not gone for training at the law enforcement academy yet.
The incidents highlight both the critical nature of routine law enforcement situations and the importance of training those who can suddenly be thrust into dynamic life and death incidents.
Just to become an officer in Indiana, a person must attend the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy for a mandated 40-hour training course. Beyond that, Ball State officers must also complete 80 hours of field training before carrying a weapon or making an arrest.
State law also requires 24 additional training hours each year, which can be in a variety of areas.
“Campus police and city police attend the same academy for basic training,” said Michael Lindsay, deputy director of the law enforcement academy. “Thereafter, each department is largely responsible for the in-service training provided.”
In their annual training, officers are able to choose which classes or programs they wish to attend, as long as there are two hours covering firearms, two in emergency vehicle operations and two in physical (defensive) tactics, Lindsay said.
Neither the University Police Department nor Muncie Police Department have additional training requirements beyond the 24 in-service hours mandated by the state.
UPD officers, however, rarely receive fewer than 75 hours of in-service training in a calendar year, and most are training beyond the required hours, Bell said.
Because of minimal available funds, most MPD officers, on the other hand, do not go far beyond the 24 in-service hours.
MPD Chief Stewart said that while his officers are well-trained, there could always be room for more training beyond what is required.
“I would love to offer more training opportunities for my officers, it’s just a matter of figuring out how we can get the resources to make these things happen,” Stewart said.
Perhaps because of the training that university police receive, incidents like those at Cincinnati or in Muncie a dozen years ago are rare. For the most part, patrols on campus are routine, with most crimes involving minor alcohol offenses, according to the annual Campus Crime Report.
Typical Day
Ball State police always have at least three officers on duty at all times, and Lt. David Bell of Ball State’s UPD said most calls typically are non-violent.
“It’s uncommon for us to get calls that are very violent or require much force of any kind,” Bell said. “But that in no way means that our [officers] aren’t prepared for anything that could come their way.”
While the jurisdiction for university police covers the campus and surrounding streets (Jackson McGalliard /Wheeling Tillotson), MPD is responsible for calls throughout all corporate limits of the city.
For Muncie police officers, the day shift — which runs from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. — is the busiest time of day, MPD Chief Steve Stewart said.
On an average day, MPD officers report that some areas of the city can bring in more than 15 calls per shift.
Most calls MPD responds to are related to welfare checks, domestic issues and drugs, Stewart said.
“We definitely get calls to a wide variety of incidents,” Stewart said. “There might be a day here or there where there just isn’t much going on, but that’s pretty rare for the ones working the day shift.”
Although officers end their shift at 11 p.m., Stewart said it’s very common — if not expected, at times — to be at the station past midnight.
“There are so many calls coming in during one shift that it can be hard for [officers] to get reports and paperwork done while they’re actually on the go,” Stewart said. “It can definitely get busy around here.”
While Stewart said MPD may stay busier and have responsibility for “more serious calls,” Bell said it doesn’t take away from the capabilities and skills that UPD officers maintain.
“There’s nothing bad that should be said about Muncie police, not at all. We work very well with MPD and their officers, especially when we need to help each other out,” Bell said. “But [university officers] are each just as capable and trained as those in Muncie.”
Training
Since the shooting by Ball State UPD in 2002, Bell said officers have continued to undergo extensive annual training through in-service hours, and the department passed a second CALEA accreditation evaluation in 2011.
“Our department has high standards, but we work hard and we work well with other university organizations, with students, with the community, with the Muncie police – we all have to work together,” Bell said.
The university pays for all training UPD officers receive, including extra hours beyond those required.
While both police departments usually receive their 24 in-service hours at the academy, UPD also has field training officers on site who often help officers get those extra hours.
“We have a lot of very well-trained officers in this department,” Bell said. “Our field training officers are able to lead sessions to complete in-service requirements, and, in the past, we’ve had university officers and MPD officers train together.”
Bell said the Ball State police department has specialized units in the area of detectives, K-9 and bicycle patrol. Officers have “developed expertise” in various areas that range from criminal investigations and community policing to drug recognition and chemical weapons, Bell said.
Additionally, Bell said the department doesn’t stop at the “really physical” aspects of training. While working on such a diverse campus, he said it’s important that officers are prepared for any situation, including those that may require more verbal and culturally sensitive skills.
“Our officers are trained to be able to approach all different kinds of individuals with many different types of backgrounds,” Bell said. “[The officers] are constantly being encouraged to go to different programs and events to interact with all kinds of students on campus, and we’ve teamed up with [the] Multicultural Center to get training for different situations and people as well.”
Bell said while most officers are documenting three to five times more hours than are required, it’s at the will of each individual.
“We don’t force anyone to do more training or in-service hours,” Bell said. “These officers take great initiative to better themselves and the jobs that they’re doing.”
Ball State police paid more, but have smaller jurisdiction
University police officers are often paid more than their city counterparts, despite having a smaller area to patrol.
Ball State UPD officers are no exception, averaging higher salaries than those working for the Muncie Police Department, in addition to the extra training they receive.
Between Muncie and Ball State police departments, pay wages vary amongst positions and levels of leadership. While Lt. David Bell of Ball State’s University Police Department said there are many new recruits coming into UPD, other officers have been with the force for more than two decades.
Ball State University police officers make a base pay of $18 per hour, but the average annual salary for current full-time UPD officers is approximately $50,000, according to the Board of Trustees annual salary report.
As of 2015, a full-time officer with MPD receives a base pay of $42,810 per year, with a patrol officer making an average of $42,930 in a calendar year, according to City of Muncie annual salary records.
As for the chiefs of police, city records indicate MPD Chief Steve Stewart’s salary is just over $60,000 per year, while UPD’s Director of Public Safety James Duckham made more than $111,000 during the 2014-2015 school year, Ball State Trustee reports said.
Duckham said more experience and time with the department typically equates to higher leadership and higher salaries.
Ball State administration and the Board of Trustees determine salaries and wages for Ball State university police, and funding can vary each year, said university spokesperson Joan Todd. Over the last five years, wages have continued to rise for university officers and UPD administration.
For Muncie police officers, the City of Muncie instead determines funding, with the City Council and the Fraternal Order of Police deciding annually what changes can be made to department funds and salaries.
“We’re thankful for what we have, but we could greatly benefit from more,” Stewart said. “Money is tough to come by for many departments — not just this one — but I could use more resources for my officers and for this department.”
Since Stewart took the position as chief of police in Muncie, the department has seen one raise.
“It wasn’t a lot, but it was something,” Stewart said. “I would love to see another raise come through here.”
Most MPD officers and employees have more than 20 years of service with the department already, but Stewart said those members can’t expect much more of a guaranteed raise.
“I want to raise the wages, I want to get five or six more officers out there and I want to give those in this department more of what they really deserve,” Stewart said.
Stewart said more than half of his officers hold a second job elsewhere. Many find part-time work serving as school security guards or traffic patrol, and some are working in “completely different areas” altogether.
“[The officers] love what they do — I know it, I see it every day — and I know the community is always becoming a better place when they’re out there,” Stewart said. “It’s not cutting it for most of these men and women, though. There’s just not enough income for an officer to only be employed by the department.”
Bigger Picture
The Department of Justice suggests that, on average, university-employed police tend to earn salaries above those of city or state law enforcement officers. While this is true for Muncie police when compared to its campus counterpart, other college towns in Indiana are not seeing the same trend.
Indiana University Bloomington police officers make an annual base pay of $40,726, and similar to Ball State’s university police, IUPD pay wages increase with time and leadership level. However, probationary officers for the Bloomington city police force receive $45,544 per year.
While IUPD averages 10 to 12 calls per day, according to the iu.edu daily crime log, most calls the department receives involve alcohol violations, marijuana or other misdemeanors. Bloomington police are responding to similar calls, although police logs indicate the department oversees more cases that involve violence and serious injury or death.
IUPD employs 125 full-time sworn police officers — 44 of which are exclusively employed at the IU Bloomington campus — and is among the 12 largest law enforcement organizations in Indiana.
Lt. Craig Munroe, public information officer for IUPD, said officers at IU Bloomington still typically clock three to four times more training than is required by the state.
“The training division’s primary responsibility is to provide training opportunities to the officers of the department throughout the year,” Munroe said. “It is not unusual for the training division to coordinate and/or provide over 15,000 hours of training a year for the departmental personnel.”
Moving Forward
UPD officers average more pay in a calendar year than officers with the city police, but Bell said Ball State officers are also averaging three times as much in-service training than their local counterparts.
Although it’s unknown if or when either MPD or UPD officers will receive a pay raise, employee performance and pay are assessed at the end of each calendar year by the City of Muncie and by the Ball State Board of Trustees, respectively.
Stewart said he didn’t disagree that there are gaps in pay, but he argued that his officers are ready for the “high-intensity” calls they frequently receive on a typical day.
“I wish there was higher pay for [the officers],” Stewart said. “But I don’t doubt the performance of the men and the women in this department – the community is safer with these dedicated individuals, and I know many are grateful for that.”