By John Holl, The New York Times
JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- When authorities raised the terrorism threat level two weeks ago in the financial services areas of Northern New Jersey and New York City, Ronald Buonocore, the police chief here, immediately activated reserve officers, met with senior department officials and increased patrols around the city’s potential targets.
Then he consulted with the staff member who puts together the Police Department budget.
“The orange alert is costing the department about $35,000 per day in overtime and expenses,” Chief Buonocore said this week. “Our department can barely afford it and the state and federal government has been slow in helping us out with funding.”
The chief said his department, which also has the lowest number of officers on the force in 30 years, was struggling to recruit new officers.
With 798 officers policing New Jersey’s second largest city, with 240,000 residents, the Jersey City Police Department also assists the Port Authority police with protecting the Holland Tunnel and state park police with patrolling Liberty State Park. Mr. Buonocore said that his department was also preparing for the Republican National Convention, which will be held across the Hudson in Manhattan Aug. 30 through Sept. 2. He said those duties would include assisting with Holland Tunnel and PATH train security and helping to control the flow of travelers and protesters to New York.
“We are stuck between a brick and a hard place,” he said. “We need to keep the citizens here safe, but we also need to protect the potential targets around the city. We could use more equipment and manpower.”
Chief Buonocore said the New Jersey State Office of Counter-Terrorism had verbally agreed to pay the department for its overtime expenses, but had not committed money in writing.
The Police Department, Chief Buonocore said, is also waiting for $17 million in federal financing to buy new and desperately needed equipment. To date the department has seen only $1 million of the promised money.
“The last two orange alerts the city had were paid for by us and it is a huge expense,” Chief Buonocore said. “We need the funding to make sure that the city is safe from all possible threats.”
Jersey City is not alone, according to Mitchell Sklar, executive director of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police.
“Police departments throughout New Jersey have not gotten the share of money they deserve considering all of the infrastructure they are responsible to patrol,” said Mr. Sklar. “Some departments have received funds for overtime and additional equipment but more funding needs to be available.”
Mr. Sklar said the local police assisted other agencies in providing security, citing the state’s nuclear plants, natural gas pipelines, oil refineries and transit hubs.
“The heightened terror warnings put new strains on police departments,” he said, “and it is an extraordinary important job that needs appropriate funding.”
Gov. James E. McGreevey, who announced on Thursday that he would resign on Nov. 15 because of repercussions of an extramarital affair with a man, recently appealed to President Bush to restore full financing to several antiterrorism programs and to provide New Jersey with additional resources.
“New Jersey is uniquely vulnerable, and federal dollars allocated so far simply aren’t proportionate with the risks the state confronts,” Mr. McGreevey wrote in a letter to the president in early August.
Chief Buonocore said that his department lacked some pieces of equipment that are staples in other similar-sized cities.
“After Sept. 11, 2001, Jersey City was one of the main evacuation points from New York,” he said. “But today we do not even have a very good boat for patrolling the water and only one bomb-sniffing dog. We should have at least two or three of each.”
The police are also conducting random vehicle checks and working to enhance security with the major financial companies in Jersey City, like Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. Shortly after taking office in 2003 Chief Buonocore put into effect a plan to coordinate emergency response with private security firms that work in the city’s businesses and with regular citizens.
“We are a unique city with unique needs and surroundings,” he said. “We have it all here: tunnels, skyscrapers, a waterfront, new housing developments and distinct neighborhoods. “The city is safe, the Police Department is working really hard, but we could always use some more assistance.”