A Philadelphia firm assessed the City of Williamsport police facilities suggesting the city needs to reach a financial point to where it can borrow money to build something better.

“Your police facilities are inefficient and insufficient,” said Gordon Mann, managing director with Public Financial Management (PFM), the company that is doing a strategic management plan process with the city.

Police are spread across multiple facilities, with the central administrative staff being in the Trade and Transit Centre I building, and the core operations at the former transportation museum on Nichols Place several blocks away, said Bob McDermott, director at PFM. He said the company went on a recent tour. It was described by McDermott as a “very eye opening experience.”

Inefficient (for police administration) in that in order for them to go and talk to one of their officers, they have to walk down the stairs, grab a car, drive down the street, get inside the building, have a conversation and drive back, Mann said.

Police move between the administrative office on the third floor of Trade and Transit Centre I, 100 W. Third St., and 800 Nichols Place, where the patrol division is located.

Insufficient, Mann said, suggesting the City Council take a close look at pictures the firm presented them closely, showing the problem areas. The photos were taken as part of the firm’s review of different city departments operations.

“Envision somebody coming into the building, perhaps not in the best frame of mind, and think about how you would move them throughout that building,” Mann said.

The bathroom is at one end of the building and the people are on the other, he added, “and you have to get them from one end of the building to the other unless you don’t want them to use the toilet.”

For the patrol building, there were issues such as a lack of a secure parking facility, improvised wooden lockers for police officer’s belongings and equipment, some space issues for tools and equipment, and generally insufficient space within the building.

The firm took photographs to highlight what those issues were. PFM officials deduced there was insufficient space for record keeping and evidence storage.

The pictures showed council the entry doorway and police lockers. The department of public works constructed the lockers and the doorway, McDermott said.

A second photograph showed the main floor, and in the middle an officer was seen taking a call at the central desk, and on the right, that is where people accused of crimes are processed.

“They may be disorderly, they may be making noise, and this is at the same time officers are trying to field calls,” McDermott said.

Additionally, there are holding areas that are next to critical infrastructure.

“I don’t want to imply that services are being affected,” McDermott said.

He noted how city Police Chief Justin Snyder walked the firm through different situations, such as where there is an assailant and a witness in the building at the same time and all of the steps that police have to take to keep them apart from one another .

“There are a lot of complications that exist just operating within this facility,” McDermott said.

“They are doing the best they can with the facilities they have,” Mann said.

“We put that as a high priority long-term but, again, this is still within the context of the fiscal situation,” McDermott said.

The city needs to borrow money to actually address any facility issues, so this is a future step that we believe needs to be addressed … it is a high priority, McDermott said.

The police were located in the museum and the Trade and Transit I after the City Hall building was condemned and evacuated due to water leaks and environmental safety concerns over three and a half years ago. All the offices, including the police department, were relocated. A burst water pipe caused more water damage. Mann suggested the city needs to reach a financially strong enough point where it can go out and borrow enough money to build a real police station.

“We have not had any legitimate ideas for a place for the police to go since we all moved out of City Hall three and a half years ago,” Councilman Jon Mackey, chairman of the public safety committee, said.

“We have had a couple of meetings, where people sit down and they draw stuff out by hand on a piece of paper and we have a discussion about it, but that is as far as it goes.”

Facts and figures

The Bureau of Police enforces the law, preserves the peace and provides effective police services. There are 48 sworn officers, a few civilian positions and some temporary grant-funded positions, community relations officers and an information technology position.

The 2025 budget indicated the police budget was $11.3 million.

The PFM review included calls for service, or what the police were responding to.

Traffic-related incidents are the largest source of call volume for the department, followed by domestic related incidents, disorder, follow up and service calls (calls the department is handling over the phone in an attempt to not send out an officer and preserve existing resources, which are growing at an annual rate of 17%.

Even if call volumes are declining or going down, that doesn’t mean the nature of calls are consistent.

Some calls may take an hour or two of policing time.

Even if call volumes are up or down it is not necessarily indicative of what the service is or the demands on the department.

The peak call volume is in the afternoon Monday through Friday and a lot of that is the highest source of call volume, which is traffic-related incidents — and not the only source of calls.