Federal authorities are concerned that Cincinnati officials are missing deadlines in the landmark agreement to overhaul policies and procedures in the police department.

        Wednesday is the deadline to select a monitor to oversee those police reforms - a deadline that already has been extended once - but city officials have refused to say whether they are going to meet it.

        Department of Justice spokeswoman Casey Stavropoulos said there is concern, but said last week,

        “We remain optimistic that the city will abide by the agreement.”

        Of chief concern, she said, are selecting the monitor and several specific police policies that the department has not enacted.

        City Manager Valerie Lemmie agreed that there are outstanding issues with the Justice Department, but she said the city has every intention of meeting its obligations without conflict.

        “The police reform issue is the one everyone is working through,” Ms. Lemmie said. “Sometimes people can throw the baby out with the bath water in order to achieve results.”

        The agreement with the Department of Justice is one of two the city made after the April 2001 riots. It ended a federal patterns and practices investigation of the police department. The second agreement settled a lawsuit filed against the city by African-Americans who accused police of decades of discrimination and racial profiling.

        Both agreements call for sweeping reforms of the police department and have many concurrent deadlines. But while the Justice Department settlement focuses solely on police policies - use of force, discipline, citizen complaints - the lawsuit settlement also requires the plaintiffs to take several steps to improve community police relations.

        The monitor, supposed to be selected jointly by the Department of Justice, the city, the police union and the plaintiffs by Sept. 12, will oversee both agreements and answer directly to U.S. District Court Judge Susan Dlott.

        Ms. Lemmie acknowledged that this is not the first time the city missed a deadline, but she stressed that hitting an exact date is less important than the fact that the parties are working together to meet goals. She pointed out that the city extended the application period for those seeking to head the Citizen Complaint Authority, which will replace the Office of Municipal Investigation as the agency to investigate complaints of police misconduct and officer-involved shootings.

        Al Gerhardstein, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said the process is working.

        “We certainly don't want to miss deadlines,” he said. “But we are going forward in good faith, and that is progress.”

        Fraternal Order of Police lawyer Don Hardin agreed.

        Judge Dlott is well aware of the deadlines, he said, and the situations that might have caused delays.

        “If I didn't feel that we were working in a cooperative manner, then I wouldn't be involved in it,” Mr. Hardin said. “I certainly do not get the feeling in this atmosphere that anyone is taking this lightly.”

        Judge Dlott refused to comment. But many of the original deadlines were tied to her signature on the agreement, which was anticipated in June and didn't come until August.

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