Department of Public Safety Commissioner Robert Guerrero said Friday that some equipment that police officers have been using were purchased via the procurement process and that he does not have the luxury to select specific brands favored by some.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the procurement process\u2026my hands are tied,\u201d said Guerrero in response to a question raised by Rep. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan) during the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee hearing on the DPS budget for fiscal year 2023.<\/p>\n
According to Propst, he has received complaints from some police officers who wish to remain anonymous, but had met with him. Propst said these police officers showed him some of their equipment and photos taken of them. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things that they talked about was their belt. They explained how it was\u2026made [of] really cheap material,\u201d the lawmaker said.<\/p>\n
He said some of the police officers had to use their own money to purchase U.S.-made or better brands. <\/p>\n
Propst said he has also spoken to these officers with regard to having to pay to fix the damage to their uniforms or replace them. \u201cWhat is the current rule with regard to the uniforms if they need a new uniform? Is it out of pocket from them? Or does the department pay for it?\u201d he asked. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said the equipment are purchased through a bidding system under the procurement process. The commissioner said if they bid out any purchase, they just give the specification and a lot of the equipment that are made in China meet the specifications. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said that when officers say that they need a specific equipment, DPS helps get those items for them. He said it\u2019s the same thing with uniforms. In fact, he said, they just ordered three additional uniforms per officer. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said he does not believe that officers pay for their own uniform and other equipment. <\/p>\n
Propst asked if there are specific standards that are in place in the procurement process.<\/p>\n
Propst said he saw one of the belts, but he could feel the material was obviously not sturdy. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo my question is, for procurement purposes, couldn\u2019t standards be put in, you know, made in the U.S. only or something to that effect?\u201d the lawmaker asked. <\/p>\n
Guerrero said they tried that with vehicles, as far as making sure that they\u2019re made in America. For some items, though, Guerrero said they don\u2019t apply to DPS. \u201cI\u2019ve been told that I cannot be very specific enough where I\u2019m targeting a particular brand,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, he said, a lot of these items are not readily available on island and they have to be ordered. <\/p>\n
In his answer to the question of Ways and Means Committee vice chair Rep. Corina L. Magofna (D-Saipan), Guerrero said if the officers or staff had to go out and buy items out of their own pocket, DPS honors their reimbursement requests. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Department of Public Safety Commissioner Robert Guerrero said Friday that some equipment that police officers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":369864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-369863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-dps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}