Up Close: Opponents cry 'quota' over new HPD policy

11:27 AM CST on Tuesday, March 29, 2005

By Jeff McShan / 11 News

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In Houston's 40 million square feet of downtown office space, you'll find people doing their jobs every day.

At last count, there were 144,315 of them.

KHOU-TV

Opponents of the new HPD policy regarding productivity say it's nothing more than a quota system for writing traffic tickets.

Downtown is thriving and the sky's the limit.

Houston's downtown district says it's because our city is made up of people with "can do" attitudes. They say that's what makes Houston great, because we work hard and we're productive.

But if you're employed in the business world, don't you have to be productive?

Eric Macias works for Rock Mountain, a company that shreds paper.

What if he didn't show up at the bank where the documents needed to be shredded?

"They'd fire me," he says. "[I'd] get fired."

But just around the corner from the bank, you'll find police headquarters.

Some say if you don't do your job there, well?

With a rash of officer retirements, and a rise in traffic violations, Police Chief Harold Hurtt says this is the time for all of his officers to be productive.

So he is about to come out with a system to track their productivity, but it's not without criticism.

"This isn't about safety, this is all about money," said one officer who asked not to be identified.

In a preliminary HPD memo obtained by 11 News, it states that officers on the streets must write at least one traffic ticket per day.

If not, you could be sent to guard a prisoner at Ben Taub or you might be assigned to work the phones. The department could also take away your ability to work extra jobs or even terminate you.

Opponents call it nothing but a quota, a ticket quota in fact.

Craig Ferrell is director of HPD's legal services. He says quotas are illegal and HPD will not break the law.

"Sometimes if you put the wrong adjective out in explaining it, people come running to the media saying 'Quota, quota.' And that's not what's going on," says Ferrell.

Texas passed the illegal quotas law in 1989. The intent was to keep tiny towns like Kendleton, located on busy highways, from writing a large amount of tickets and lining its pockets.

"The law was basically designed to deal with [alleged] speed traps," says Ferrell.

But now, some police agencies say the quota law is keeping them from being effective managers.

In Dallas for example, Police Chief David Kunkle says his city is soliciting state lawmakers to dump the quota law.

He tells 11 News big cities like his need the ability to gauge an officer's performance by the number of tickets they are writing.

"My experience is we look at an officer's productivity and amount of work they do, and 911 calls answered, and balance that all together to determine whether or not they are doing a good job," says Kunkle.

Ferrell says HPD is not asking for the quota law to go away, because even though it can be difficult, he says it's written clear enough not to interfere with the department trying to ensure officer productivity. Even though, many still complain.

"It's something we have researched quite a lot, that we're concerned with because one thing: We are going to follow the law and quotas are illegal. And I think they should be," says Ferrell. "I don't think anybody should set a predetermined number and say no matter what, you have to write an x-amount of tickets. That's not what we've had here in Houston or it's not what we are advocating. What we are telling our officers though, 'We expect for you to put a full day's work for a full day's pay' and part of that full day's work is traffic enforcement."

So expect more tickets to be written soon. It's part of their job. Just like it's part of Eric Macias' job to shred paper.