From Staff Reports 

The Matrix Consulting firm’s survey of Asheville Police Department officers indicates there are severe morale issues within the APD.

On the positive side, of the 96 APD employees who completed the survey (more than half of them patrol officers), most agreed that the department is serving the community, that they received good training and that supervisors create a motivating work environment.

However, on the negative side, the results were eye-opening:

• Only 7 percent said the APD has a clear vision.

• 9 percent said the department makes effective decisions.

• 5 percent said the APD does a good job anticipating internal problems.

• 74 percent said policies and procedures are not consistently applied in the department, with 72 percent opining that standards of conduct are applied differently to managers than to line staff.

• 7 percent said the APD has a positive culture.

The survey results will be given to whomever is selected to replace departed city Police Chief William Anderson. He resigned, effective Dec. 31, 2014, amid a state Department of Justice standards inquiry, following problems with radar gun certifications that have seen hundreds of tickets dismissed.

In addition, 44 officers signed a petition in October saying they had a lack of confidence in their commanders.

The city’s initial release of the survey was incomplete. Police employees, at the end of the survey, were asked to submit written responses to four additional questions, including one on how to improve morale.

Those written responses were not part of the documents the city initially provided. City managers twice denied Citizen-Times’ state public records law requests for the survey results, but the newspaper eventually prevailed in obtaining the documents. “We would point out that public dollars paid for the survey, making it the public’s business,” the AC-T noted in a Jan. 25 editorial.

Matrix will be paid $47,500 for its work from November through March. Since 2011, the city has spent $268,618 on police consultants. 

The APD has a $24 million annual budget, which represents the city’s largest budgetary outlay.