Public safety leaders face challenging questions every day: Are a department’s policies aligned with best practices and evolving legal standards? Do day-to-day operations align with those policies in the field? Consistently addressing these questions is critical to organizational stability and accountability. Failing to proactively address them may expose agencies to significant operational, legal and reputational risk.
To help address these challenges, Renne Public Management Group (RPMG) and Renne Public Law Group are expanding their public safety management consulting with the launch of a new program, Law Enforcement Management & Liability Mitigation Services, designed to help public agencies strengthen operations, improve accountability, reduce risk and support better decision-making.
“Public safety agencies operate in an environment where expectations for transparency and accountability continue to grow,” said RPMG Executive Director Nelson Fialho. “We help agency leaders take a proactive look at the systems that support public safety before challenges become difficult to manage.”
According to Consultant and former Piedmont Police Chief Jeremy Bowers, public safety risk is rarely the result of one policy, one incident or one individual. More often, he said, exposure develops over time when policies, training, supervision, staffing, documentation and field practices fall out of alignment.
“Inconsistency is at the heart of organizational risk,” said Jeremy. “Agencies may have strong policies, but problems emerge when the organization is not consistently meeting the standards laid out in its own policies.”
RPMG’s consultants help agencies identify gaps, understand their causes and develop steps to improve and maintain performance.
“What we provide is a focus on auditing as part of proactive risk management,” said Consultant Gina Anderson, an attorney and retired City of Newark police chief. “The goal is to help agencies look at high-liability areas and determine whether their practices are consistent with their policies.”
RPMG provides reviews of high-risk areas such as use of force, vehicle pursuits, critical incident response, internal affairs, discipline and body-worn camera compliance. Its approach is proactive and practical, offering support during leadership transitions, after critical incidents or in response to recurring trends.
“This is an opportunity to strengthen the profession by helping agencies identify potential problems,” said Consultant David Swing, also a retired police chief who served the cities of Pleasanton and Morgan Hill. “When agencies can surface those issues early, they are better positioned to find solutions before those issues become difficult to manage.”
RPMG has a proven track record of success assisting clients with facilitated performance evaluations, labor negotiations, human resource services, workplace investigations, compensation studies, strategic planning, facilitation and conflict resolution, training, coaching and professional development, and elected and appointed board governance training. For more information, please visit RennePublicManagement.com.