Emily Rasinski | Post-Dispatch

Not long ago, a wise old cop at St. Louis Police headquarters on Clark Avenue offered this assessment of the recent troubles at the department to which he has devoted his career:

“The romance of the job is what’s killing us. The dramatic foot chase down the dark alley is what the culture values most highly. Which is perfectly appropriate, except when it keeps us from attending to important details of the job.”

Within the department, he said, many veterans exalt the glory of what they call the “real police,” the cops on the streets stopping crime. Meanwhile, they look down on the importance of the administrative jobs inside the department, even though those jobs are no less crucial to the department’s integrity or to keeping the public safe.

For example, the wise old cop said, the department suffered blows to its reputation last year when its property room — the place where evidence and other seized items are stored —was found to be in disarray. Cleaning up and reorganizing the property room was superb police work, the officer noted. Those who did it received letters of commendation but little respect from the larger organization.

Other administrative functions at the police department also had problems last year. Its records of towed and seized cars were in disarray; the city was owed more than $700,000 from a tow lot operator. Questions were raised about the way the asset forfeiture office had handled money seized from crime suspects. The department acknowledged that interest derived from investing the seized funds had been spent improperly on departmental needs.

In October, the Board of Police Commissioners appointed Major Dan Isom chief of police and charged him with getting the department’s business affairs in order. Mr. Isom acknowledged that nobody becomes a cop so he can push paper. But beginning this month, his new strategic business plan aims to restore some respect to the department’s administrators.

Mr. Isom identifies “managing the business” as “Strategic Direction 1” and approaches the challenge from several directions.

Commanders of the department’s patrol, detective, juvenile and special units regularly convene “CompStat” meetings to compare crime trends and data against specific goals. Beginning in January, Mr. Isom will convene “Administrative CompStat” meetings to hold his administrators accountable on records management, workers’ compensation and overtime costs, 911 service, racial profiling, use-of-force complaints and other matters.

The department will beef up its internal audit team and appoint a high-level commander to lead it. The strategic plan also calls for developing better ways to measure how officers are performing and how well managers are managing.

New software systems are supposed to be in place by mid-2009 to better manage department records and contracts. And the department will create “satisfaction surveys” to measure what its employees and customers — i.e., citizens — are saying about the job it is doing.

The chief’s strategic plan benefits from being simple and straightforward. None of the items, though, are self-executing. All must be implemented by a busy department that will soon lose many of its most experienced commanders to retirement.

And the reality is that Mr. Isom’s goals are not new; the department has been working on all of them for years. But public demand is a big part of the equation.

When budgets get tight and crime starts rising, business owners and residents of city neighborhoods want cops on the street. Understandably so. The temptation for police commanders is to put their top people on the streets, not behind a desk.

Mr. Isom’s job is to achieve the best balance in staffing — using resources to prevent crime while protecting the integrity of the department’s crucial business operations.

The veteran officer was correct when he pointed to the culture of the department as working against administrative reform. Although the “romance” of police work still can be part of a productive balance, the key task of Mr. Isom’s strategic plan is to narrow the gap between romance and the demands of running a large organization — and running it properly — with limited resources.