After nearly two years worth of delays, an audit of the Lawrence Police Department is now set to be completed by early October.

Questions about why the audit has taken so long and whether the department is adequately measuring policing activities were raised as city commissioners finalized the 2011 budget.

“Every department in the city has to justify what it is doing, and I just feel like we’re giving the police department a pass,” said Laura Routh, a Lawrence resident and frequent critic of the department.

Routh questioned whether the delay in the audit was the result of police leaders not cooperating with the city auditor. City Auditor Michael Eglinski said Wednesday that was not the case.

“There’s been no issue with that,” Eglinski said. “It is not like they are keeping secrets from me or being difficult with me at all.”

Eglinski said the audit — which was started in 2008 — has been a long process because it is taking a broad look at the department, and because he has made completing several other audits a priority over the police work.

Results to be released

Eglinski said he is now drafting the audit report. He expects to release it to the commission and the public in early October.

The audit is not focusing on any particular issues in the department. Commissioners ordered the audit because they said it would be good for one of the city’s larger departments to be thoroughly reviewed.

Eglinski said the audit has been focusing on the department’s administrative functions, which include everything from how records are kept to how complaints are processed. He said the audit likely will identify eight to 12 different topics that could be the subject of future audits, if commissioners so choose.

Routh, who was part of a group that unsuccessfully called for a citizens review board for the police department, said she thinks reporting procedures for the police department need to be addressed.

As part of the city budget, nearly all city departments are required to list performance indicators that measure how well the department is meeting a list of goals.

For example, the fire and medical department is measured on the percentage of calls it is able to respond to within 6 minutes, and is expected to meet a goal of 80 percent of the calls being handled in that time frame.

The planning department and city clerk’s offices are measured on how quickly they process several types of permits.

But the police department doesn’t have such goals. Instead, its performance indicators are the number of calls the department has responded to in the last two years, and the number the department expects to respond to in the next year.

Potential goals

The city in 2005 spent nearly $60,000 on an outside consultant to develop a list of measurable goals for the department. Among the goals the “resource plan” suggested for the department were:

• Non-emergency police calls be responded to in an average of 90 minutes or less.

• The number of party and nuisance locations that have persisted for more than two months be reduced on an annual basis.

• The number of citizens reporting chronic problems hold steady or decline each year.

City Manager David Corliss said the police department is doing more statistical work than it has done in the past.

“We do have reports that look at a number of indicators, and I meet on a monthly basis with the police chief to review them,” Corliss said.

But Corliss said that now that the budget process is completed, he plans to devote time to developing a more comprehensive reporting system for the police department. He said he’s begun to look at what performance measures other cities use for their police departments.

“But I do think we have a very good police department, and a department that believes in continuous improvement,” Corliss said.