A consultant reviewing the operation of Lansford Borough noted that police call volume appeared overinflated compared to the department’s arrest rate.

Lansford’s mayor is taking that seriously.

Mayor Denise Leibensperger wrote to Ben Kafferlin, managing partner at Kafferlin Strategies, Thursday, the day after he presented an update to borough council.

The firm was hired as to come up with recommendations for a five-year strategic and financial plan for the borough as part of the state’s Strategic Training and Management Program.

Kafferlin this month reviewed the borough’s programs and departments, including police, recommending hiring one additional officer.

The firm would have recommended hiring more officers based on the call volume, but the numbers seemed “to be overinflated pretty significantly,” Kafferlin told council.

“If they were true, then you would be having a required arrest rate of much higher than it currently is,” he said. “We would like to get into that data a little deep, if you’re interested.

“There’s just no way that it is possible that you have the kind of call volume that is being reported without the kind of arrests,” he said.

Kafferlin did note that the borough had a higher number of domestic disputes than the neighboring communities, compared to the averages, which justifies another officer.

Council didn’t respond or react when asked to delve deeper.

Leibensperger, who was not at Wednesday’s council meeting, asked for justification on Kafferlin’s statements.

“We showed their employee the CAD (computer aided dispatch) reports with the answered call volume,” she said, noting that all the calls that she reports in her monthly reports are answered calls from dispatch. Borough police are dispatched through the county’s 911 Communication Center.

The September police report showed Lansford police dispatched to 337 calls and complaints with 18 new criminal cases and 11 arrests. Fifteen traffic contacts, 17 quality of life tickets, 68 parking tickets, and seven criminal warrants served.

“All calls I report are answered calls from dispatch,” Leibensperger told the Times News in an email. “Kafferlin has not shown anything to support his claim.”

She wrote to Kafferlin saying that they spent two hours with an employee of the firm and provided call volume figures “based on documented police reports, dispatch records and departmental statistics.”

“Given the time and effort spent providing this documentation, I am extremely concerned that you are now making statements that appear to question the accuracy of our reporting,” she wrote.

“I take the integrity of our Police Department and the accuracy of our public reporting very seriously,” Leibensperger said. “Our officers work diligently to serve the residents of Lansford, and their work should not be misrepresented or public discredited without verifiable evidence.

“If you believe our statistics are inaccurate, I expect you to identify the specific discrepancies and provide the documentation supporting your position,” she wrote.

Leibensperger also noted that the person who supplied the findings that Kafferlin summarized did not respond to her emails. She said she was told that “they would release the reports to us on October 28th.”

Kafferlin, contacted by the Times News on Monday, said that no report would be released on the 28th.

“I’m not sure what the mayor is referring to,” he said in an email. “We plan to release the full 300-page document in early December.

“While the final report will contain more detail and the more minor recommendations, I do not expect any substantive changes from the current draft,” Kafferlin said.