According to records obtained by the Sedona Red Rock News, the Sedona Police Department’s arrest figures for fiscal year 2023 fell short of its predictions. The department retained similarly high predictions for FY 24 in the city’s proposed budget, which the Sedona City Council passed on Aug. 8.

SPD’s proposed baseline budget for FY 24 was $9,497,800, plus $215,800 in capital project spending, for a total of $9,713,600, the largest amount of funding in SPD’s history.

The department’s non-capital budget in FY 23 was $8,910,530. Council also voted to increase the proposed budget by another $133,460 to fund an additional position.

Arrest Predictions

SPD projected it would make 580 arrests in FY 23, including 460 misdemeanor arrests, 120 felony arrests and 55 DUI arrests.

The number of arrests that SPD made in FY 23 was 424, 27% below the department’s prediction. These included 43 DUI arrests and 54 assault arrests. SPD received 125 theft reports during the year, not all of which resulted in an arrest, and issued 2,102 citations.

For FY 24, it is projecting 400 misdemeanor arrests, 120 felony arrests and 75 DUI arrests — a total of 520 — an increase of 23% over FY 23.

Arrests were highest in January at 46, followed by August and September with 43 each. December was the department’s slow month, with only 27 arrests, followed by November and April with 28 apiece.

More than half of SPD’s DUI arrests occurred from July through October, with only one per month reported in November, February, April and May; August had the most drunk driving arrests, with nine DUI arrests. Half of the department’s theft arrests also took place between July and October.

Overall, SPD averaged 1.16 arrests per day, and its 29 sworn personnel averaged about 1.22 arrests per person per month. The daily cost of running the department was $24,412.

According to the information SPD provided in the FY 24 proposed budget, it made 329 arrests in FY 22 and 464 arrests in FY 21. It has not made more than 500 arrests in a single year since 2011.

Sedona is one of 20 towns and cities in Arizona with populations between 5,000 and 15,000. Excluding Youngstown, Guadalupe and Litchfield Park, which rely on on other agencies for policing, in FY 23, Sedona had the second-highest total police budget of any of these cities — only Paradise Valley appropriated a larger sum, at $10.1 million. The average police budget among these other cities was $5.29 million.

Total police expenditure in Cottonwood and Camp Verde combined, with a population of 12,029 and 12,147, respectively, was $10.9 million. Cottonwood police made 989 arrests in FY 23, while the Camp Verde Marshal’s Office made 327 arrests.

Additional Policing

Sedona Police Chief Stephanie Foley is optimistic that her department will be able to increase the number of arrests it makes during the coming fiscal year. During June’s budget work sessions, the city council approved a decision package to hire a second motorcycle officer. Foley said the officer will be used for time-relevant calls and traffic enforcement when the department’s SUVs are stuck in traffic.

“We’re trying to get creative on how to navigate through the city and the traffic congestion,” Foley said. She referred to it as “a deterrent … getting the buy-in to good behavior because you can see you’re actually going to get pulled over.”

“If we can get somebody on a bicycle in Uptown that would be a great focus, just for a very specific location,” Foley added. She also noted that “we did try bicycles. It was a little more complicated due to the travel distance … not a lot of people were signing up for it.”

“E-bikes might be a better solution,” suggested Councilman Pete Furman. “I know I can get through town faster on my e-bike.”

Furman then asked if DUI arrests were expected to rise as a result of adding a second officer or if there was actually a trend of increasing drunkenness in the community.

“When you have somebody have the ability to focus on it, you tend to find more,” Foley stated. “Until people learn that if they drive drunk, that they will have repercussions, they will keep doing it … the more that we can be out there, again as a deterrent, or as an enforcer, we’ll see the numbers go up a little bit, but ideally we would then see over time them come back down.”

Lt. Karl Waak also responded to Vice Mayor Holli Ploog’s concern over a perceived increase in homelessness as a police issue, pointing out that the homeless “are fairly self-regulating as a community. They do not want someone to be causing trouble and drawing attention.”

Normal on-duty staffing for SPD is three officers and one sergeant.

Monthly Data

The department’s posting of its monthly arrest figures on Facebook began in September but ended in November.

The Cottonwood Police Department and the Flagstaff Police Department publish annual reports containing at least some details of the number and type of arrests they make, SPD does not. The department’s website states that “at the end of each year, the police department will publish a list of the year’s nature of incidents, a compilation of types of calls for service and total calls reported for the year.”

The only report that has been published so far is that for 2020, which does not include arrest data.