City study recommends big changes

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - It's a thick document with a lot to say.

The nearly 600 page long Matrix report did not come cheap, but Albuquerque Mayor R.J. Berry is hoping the nearly $200,000 study of the city's operations will pay off in a big way.

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"The Matrix report is going to be very good for the city in the long run," Berry said. "If we can find a way to save two positions from an efficiency standpoint, that'll pay for report three times over in the next 10 years."

The city recently received a draft version of the independent study and Berry says he's having department leaders pore over the sections that apply to them to see which parts he'll push going forward.

In the study there are suggestions for every branch of city government, from the Fire Department to Senior Affairs, some which would save hundreds of thousands of dollars, others which propose to improve the level of service the city offers.

There were a number of proposed improvements for the Albuquerque Police Department in the Matrix report. Prominent ones include merging the Aviation Police with APD, giving Internal Affairs better software to pick out misbehaving officers earlier and moving graveyard shift officers to daytime duty to better spread the workload and encourage community-oriented policing.

Police union leaders say that idea doesn't make sense because of what they see as an overall manpower shortage in the department.

"What we're hearing from many graveyard officers now is they're already understaffed and they're already concerned about it," said Ron Olivas with the Albuquerque Police Officers Association. "If you're going to pull their staffing more that's going to be a big concern."

Other suggestions offered by the Matrix report include potentially selling naming rights to the city convention center, hiking animal shelter fees and merging dispatch services for different emergency departments.

The mayor says he'll incorporate many of the ideas into next year's budget proposal, but he would not comment on any of the specific ideas suggested by the report Monday.