Continually improve the support services to internal constituents.

To enhance crime prevention and safety across campus.

To enhance crime prevention and safety across campus, the University Police Department will actively engage in making presentations.  These presentations are normally requested through the Department of Residence Life, Enrollment Management, and other requesting departments.  The purpose of these presentations is to inform the campus community of current trends recognized by this department and to provide general advice.  In order to evaluate this, our department will compare crime statistics for reported on campus crimes and conduct a survey of the participants who attend the presentation made by the officer.  The purpose of the survey will be to evaluate how the material is received and if the program needs changes. Presentations will be rated Above Average on all survey questions.

During the academic 2014-2015 year, our CORE (Community Out Reach Effort) continued with its secondary programming across and outside of the University.  Our CORE Team is a group of officers who volunteer their time to our students, faculty, staff, organizations, athletic programs, and outside university constituents to present a number of safety related topics.  Due to the program settings, a number of steps have been implemented to recover statistics regarding the programming; however, due to the secondary nature (not a primary program) it has proved very difficult for a volunteer group to have capture evaluations.

Therefore, our CORE Team has focused on the information that we provide at these secondary programs.  We continue to receive notable compliments based on the programs presented and have seen an increase in the number of request from primary programming to become part of their programs.  In addition, outside resources for the university have requested to take part in the programming that the CORE Team delivers.

Of special note, the CORE Team during this fiscal year have had several major accomplishments.  The first being a successful program associated with National Night Out.  Several different law enforcement agencies in Walker County (including Fire, Emergency Medical Operations, & other responders) participated in this event on campus.  Additionally, prior to spring break a program was done to make students aware of spring break safety, two of CORE members worked with our IT Department and completed a training in regards to Identify Theft Prevention, and our CORE Team received an Sammy Cane Award for their efforts across campus.

Finally, Officer Jeff Butterworth was recently state certified by the Texas Crime Prevention Association and is also currently working on his national certification.  Furthermore, this year he is working on his national certification.  In addition, in July of 2015, Officer Butterworth was invited to the state conference where he was asked to give a first time presentation on the topic of campus crime prevention.

Our department CORE Team will continue to work with the many department across campus in making presentation as it relates to campus crime prevention.  We have noted this year that our CORE Team has been a tremendous resource, but due to the volunteer level and minimal staffing we may need to look at a full time position for community outreach to achieve the desired results.

During the 2014-2015 academic year, our Community OutReach Effort Team (CORE Team) has made a tremendous impact to our campus community. Over the last several years we have been trying to gauge the impact via surveys, but this has been a difficult endeavor for volunteer officers to follow through with and have the community return survey information.  Furthermore, the secondary programming that we often do is not conducive to the survey process.

However, what we have observed is a tremendous request for this groups’ presentations to a multitude of student organizations and departments across campus.  In addition, this volunteer group received accolades from the Sammy Awards for their outstanding efforts and interaction with the university community.  The down side to the popularity of this group is that now the group has been become over committed and having a difficult time keeping up with request for presentations.

Our CORE Team is now having to become more organized and create a physical structure within their group.  As this group begins to formalize and structure their organization, it my belief that we will be better able to obtain more data driven responses from our community in reference to their presentations.  Thus, we will be in a better position to make more accurate reflections on the impact of the secondary programming that we provide.  However, we continue to see lower reported rates of property crimes (Hide, Lock, Take programs).  Additionally, the programs have had a direct impact in our relationships with student organizations and departments across campus.

Efficient use of resources

Provide efficient operations in comparison to similar Universities.

The University Police Department will evaluate and compare number of students enrolled in a similar university and the number of full time police officers who work at the institution.  This comparison will help the department to evaluate and compare how other university police department personnel compare to current full time officer to student ratio.

Currently, through our experience, our administrative staff has noted that other university police departments are set up in a similar manner and provide the same basic services as we do.  Also, departments outside of university law enforcement gauge population to officer ratios to help determine a need for officer resources.  A general number that is used for comparisons is one officer for every 1,000 in population (students/ faculty/staff). SHSU UPD’s ratio/population will be comparable (1/1000 = 5.5%) to other universities our size or even lower (ideal = 1/800 = 4.5%).    

We continue to review and monitor the growth of the University over the 2014 – 2015 academic year.  In July of 2015, our department finally arrived at full staffing levels of 25 certified Texas police officers (it should be noted that this count includes the chief of police and other officers who do not do regular patrol activities).  During this fiscal year, to help with the increase in daily administrative functions, our department requested its first administrative assistant position for the department.  This position should help alleviate the non-law enforcement and law enforcement record maintenance activities.  Based on next fiscal year’s growth at the university, the number of crimes reported, and the new concealed carry on campus our department will evaluate the need for additional officers.

The department will evaluate the number of parking citations issued to the number of parking citations that are paid per year.  Although this is not a main staple of our budget, the parking citation revenue is used to offset the revenue not generated through the sale of parking permits.  This indicator can provide trends and better help plan for future budget needs. Our ongoing goal for the future is to have $250,000 in reserve for infrastructure maintenance.

Permits for FY 15

Term

 Fiscal Year 14

Fiscal Year 15

Fall

$1,035,015.00

$1,189,223.00

Spring

$100,869.00

$116,837.00

Summer

$13,521.00

$15,367.00

Total

$1,149,405.00

$1,321,427.00

 

The growth percentage between FY14 and FY15 in regards to permit revenue is 14.9%.  This change is by majority attributed to a 10% increase in permit prices rather than percentage growth of permits sold.

Garage Contract Reserved Spaces

Term

Fiscal Year 14

Fiscal Year 15

Fall

$106,925.00

$122,856.00

Spring

$46,575.00

$48,635.00

Summer

$4,675.00

$5,006.00

Total

$158,175.00

$176,497.00

 

We were able to retain a higher percentage of customers the entire annual term in FY15 when compared to FY14.  Our department has been doing a better job of advertising the advantages of a customer reserving a space the entire year instead of semester by semester.  We observed an 11.6% increase from FY14 to FY15 regarding reserved space sales in the Sam Houston Parking Garage.  A goal of our department is to fill available spaces during the summer semester.  We currently have a great prorated price of $85.00, compared to $330.00 for a standard semester, for the summer term. 

Garage Hourly Revenue

Term

Fiscal Year 14

Fiscal Year 15

Annual

$222,205.00

$227,275.25

 

Our office observed a 2.28% increase in hourly garage parking use at the Sam Houston Parking Garage.  Customer habits are the main contributing factor for this increase as our high demand time segment for customer stay is 0 to 3 hours instead of 0 to 1.5 hours.  We expect this trend to become more popular and have countered to control hourly parking by increasing the 1st hour of parking from $1.25 to $2.00 and the maximum daily fee to $8.25 from $6.00.

Citation Revenue

Term

Fiscal Year 14

Fiscal Year 15

Annual

$318,016.00

$333,835.75

 

Citation revenue increased by 5% due to the change from hangtags to decal permits for students.  The decal is unpopular by the student populous but has allowed us to curtail parking by vehicles not authorized to park on campus.  We anticipate an increase in citation issuance and appeals on campus due to loss of parking for construction projects.  The percentage of encumbered citation fines has increased by 20% due a full year of electronic citation notifications sent via e-mail in addition to printed citations being attached to violator vehicles. 

In conclusion,  no major operational changes are anticipated this year as we move forward into moving to an electronic permit system and license plate recognition enforcement system for FY17. 

During Fiscal year 2015, we continued to monitor our calls for service and the number of offense reports that our officers respond to.  In addition, our department continues to monitor the growth of university student population and examine what our peers are doing within the Texas State University System.  At this time we feel that based on this information we are meeting the number of officers to student ratio; however, with one exception.  During the 2014 – 2015 year, our police department has noticed a trend over the last several years with day-to-day administrative paperwork increasing.  In order to free law enforcement staff of these duties, a full time equivalent administrative assistant position was requested and granted.  This position will be filled in Fiscal 2016.  This new position should help alleviate administrative paperwork from three positions and allow them to focus more on the policing of campus.

The Parking and Transportation Office continues to meet the goals and objectives that is set.  Based on current information for Fiscal 2015, the Parking and Transportation met the stated goals for revenue. Once again, for Fiscal year 2016, our goals and objectives have been raised and will face new challenges with new construction across campus in existing parking lots and with student growth.  A new look at infrastructure and new parking rules and regulations will be required for implementation by Fall 2016.