Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 20, 1990 TAG: 9007200475
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Beginning Aug. 4, the three platoons of patrol officers who currently work 10-hour shifts for four days a week will be rearranged into five platoons of officers who will work eight-hour shifts for seven straight days, Cease said Thursday.
One of those platoons will work a permanent evening shift in order to supplement the other platoons during the times that county officers receive the most calls for service, the chief said.
The new system is designed to ensure that at least seven officers are on patrol at least 85 percent of the time, he said. But during peak problem times when the Police Department receives its most calls for service, there will always be more than seven, Cease said.
The number of officers on patrol became an issue two years ago, when citizens and the Board of Supervisors began complaining that as few at three officers were on duty and response times on emergency calls were as long as 25 minutes.
The supervisors criticized the management style of Sheriff Mike Kavanaugh - who was in charge of law enforcement in the county until a referendum took that power away from him July 1 - because the average number of officers on patrol dropped after he took office.
Board members also accused Kavanaugh of playing politics with the safety of citizens because the sheriff instructed his officers to tell citizens who complained about response times to contact their county supervisors.
After the complaints, Kavanaugh designed a new patrol system of 10-hour shifts that overlapped during peak problem times.
But Cease said Thursday that platoon system didn't address the patrol problems efficiently, either.
Under that system, each of the seven patrol districts could not be staffed with one officer every day, he said. With sick leave, vacation time and other leave given to officers, "we were lucky to be getting five districts staffed," he said.
And there were other problems: It is more difficult to meet scheduling needs when officers take three days off, he said. And because officers on each shift did not get the same days off, shift supervisors often were off duty when the officers they supervised were working.
"You lose continuity of supervision and unity of command" under such a system, said Jack McCorkle, captain of the uniform division. "When you have a lieutenant who only works with his shift part of the time, it's hard to know and correct problems and to evaluate your men."
When a shift of officers don't work the same days and have the same days off, they lose some of their spirit of teamwork, he said.
Another problem with the current schedule - and one that General District Court judges have complained about - is that each uniform officer does not have one daylight court day scheduled in each month. Under the new schedule, each officer will have a court date each month.
According to the new plan, the supplemental platoon of seven officers will work a permanent eight-hour shift. That shift will work from 4 p.m. to midnight on Tuesdays through Thursdays and from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. That shift, which is made up of officers who volunteered to work those permanent hours, will be off each Sunday and Monday.
The new shift schedule will be subject to change if it appears that it will not meet the demands for service at peak times, Cease said. "We will do this and evaluate and adjust until we meet the optimal. I don't expect to meet 100 percent the first time."
Cease said he has based most of his scheduling needs on the instincts of officers who have patrolled the county for years. The computer-aided dispatch system that has been in place for two months has been able to give some sketchy information about where and when the most calls for service come in, he said.
"To really do a manpower allocation study, I would like three to five years of historical data," Cease said.
The number of calls and the types of calls also change during the year, and patrol shifts may be rescheduled to meet those demands, he said.
As the county hires more patrol officers, it also will adjust its schedule to include those officers, he said.
Four more positions for patrol officers were approved by the supervisors for January 1990, but those positions never were filled, Cease said. He is in the process of filling those vacancies and hopes to have those officers hired by September.
If the new schedule works as it is supposed to, the end result would be more officers visible on the road during peak hours and a reduced response time, Cease said.
The chief said he has not projected an optimal response time for his officers. But, he said, it is clear that response times must be reduced.
A project for the future will be to prioritize responses and set specific response-time standards for specific types of calls, he said.
by CNB