Schaumburg shuffles top cops; who will be chief?

Following the firing of their civilian director of police Richard Casler, Schaumburg officials have begun restructuring the police department to restore a sworn officer to the top position of chief.

Still unresolved, however, is who that will be and whether an outside search will be used.

Longtime Schaumburg officer Brian Howerton is the acting director of the department, and even if the village board votes in favor of the title change on March 24, Howerton will simply be acting chief.

Village Manager Ken Fritz said he and the board should reach a decision within weeks on how to determine who will be the permanent chief.

But the restructuring affects more than just Howerton, who had been chief of support services under Casler.

There was a second chief position under Casler as well - chief of patrol services - held by Vince Liberio, who will now be acting deputy chief of patrol services.

This is one of three new deputy chief positions. Their creation includes some shifting of responsibility among administrators, regarded by both Howerton and Fritz as a positive step within the department as well as for the public.

They said stripping away the extra bureaucratic level of director brings the chief closer to the rest of the organization, while helping the three deputy chiefs develop their divisions with a stronger eye on public service.

For instance, the deputy chief of patrols will be giving up such other administrative duties as planning for Septemberfest, which could have been a distraction from concentrating on the situation on the streets, Howerton said.

The acting deputy chief of special services will be Cmdr. Paul Rizzo, and the acting deputy chief of investigations will be Larry Barchet.

Bob Specht will remain manager of the administrative division but will now be on equal footing with the deputy chiefs.

Casler was fired late last month for undisclosed reasons. He claimed it was because of the insurance costs for his treatments for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which village officials denied.

He'd been earning a salary of approximately $142,000, as well as a yearly pension of about $70,000 since his retirement as chief in 2001.

Shuffle: 3 new deputy chief positions created