Falls police chief appointed to lead new Protective Service Department

Menomonee Falls - Police Chief Anna Ruzinski was appointed as the head a new department Tuesday by the Police and Fire Commission. Ruzinski will oversee both the Fire and Police Departments as head of the Consolidated Protective Services Department. The move allows the two safety departments to keep their autonomy, but also share resources when necessary.

The Menomonee Falls Police has a full-time staff many times larger than the Fire Department, a mostly part-time operation. Under the suggestion of the Village Manager, the Police Chief would head the new department and would have the power to do things not already explicitly outlined in state statutes.

"The idea is to provide an administrative synergy," explained Village Attorney Michael Morse, adding that the new department head would have the power to discipline staff if necessary, but wouldn't deal with the day-to-day operations of the other department. As part of the ordinance, the new administrator could be the Fire Chief or the Police Chief, but not both.

Trustee Sharon Ellis wanted to emphasize that this was not an effort to combine service departments, a reference to concerns Village Manager Mark Fitzgerald later explicitly attempted to address.

"I look first at structures and systems and then the people in those structures and systems," Fitzgerald explained. "We will not have firefighters doing police work."

Likewise, there will not be police staff doing fire investigations or fighting fires; the move is an administrative one.

"We have a ton of talented and, frankly, altruistic people (in the fire department), but this is not a full-time department." Fitzgerald said.

"That's mainly why we're addressing this."

When an emergency is called in to the village, it goes to dispatch. Police and fire staff already work in conjunction to address these emergencies as police often respond to fire scenes to help secure them and fire fighters respond to medical situations to potentially aid emergency medical staff.

Exactly how resources will be shared is still to be determined. There is no time table to implement this new system, although the Police and Fire Commission gave final approval Tuesday night.

Ruzinski was not available for comment following the decision.