For the past six months, an Ohio-based consulting firm has been studying the way the Gilroy Police Department is organized-from how many patrol units are out canvassing the streets each day to the amount of time officers spend writing reports.
President of the Novak Consulting Group, Julia Novak, recommended the GPD adopt a 12-hour shift schedule, as opposed to the 10-hour shift schedule currently in place, during a presentation of the study’s results to City Council on May 12.
The 52-page report includes a variety of other changes, including a recommendation the department add one officer to the traffic unit, hire more officers to meet future demand and create a patrol commander position, among others.
According to Novak, Gilroy has outgrown the 10-hour shift schedule and needs revision.
“What we found was that the number of teams and the way (the department) is staffed really doesn’t provide enough officers during the daylight hours to handle calls, much less allow for proactive policing,” Novak said.
If the GPD held onto the current 10-hour shift schedule and still wanted to meet City Council’s policy that sworn employees devote 40 percent of each shift to crime prevention, the department would need to grow by 15 officers.
The consulting firm explored the effectiveness of alternative schedules, from the recommended 12-hour shift to an 8-hour shift and how many officers are out on the streets.
On average, there are four GPD personnel–from traffic units to community service units–out on patrol, according to the report. On certain days of the week, there are at most six units on patrol with a minimum of three officers on other days.
Before hiring officers to meet Novak’s recommendation or adopting a new schedule, each item must be hashed out by the Gilroy Police Officers Association during contract negotiations-and open negotiations are underway, GPD Chief Denise Turner said.
“If we’re able to negotiate a different work schedule, we would need fewer officers to reach our targets-either 33 or 40 percent proactive policing time,” Turner added. “When we know what the scheduling is going to be, we’ll know how many officers we should ask for of the City Council. But we want to make sure we work out the schedules before we ask for more officers.”
If adopted, the recommended 12-hour shift would allow officers to a weekend off every two weeks. Many officers would receive two or three days off after they work at most three days continuously, the report reads.
That schedule-including more time off for sworn employees-helps limit fatigue, Turner added.
“Departments across the nation are using the 12-hour shift schedule successfully,” she said. “Officers are able to fully recover and spend more time with their families and less time commuting,” she said.
The City has set aside nearly $19 million from the general fund to support the department, with $9.8 million dedicated to the patrol unit, according to City records.
Within the current budget, Turner said there is insufficient funding to support the hiring of additional officers. But if the 12-hour shift change is adopted and the schedule is adapted to match the times of day where there are the most calls for police response, more officers won’t be needed, she added.
“We’re going to see better response times (with a schedule change) and it will even out the workload,” Turner said. “Scheduling differently will have a huge benefit before we even need to add officers but I do believe we will need to add officers in the future. It’s just about the timing, finding the funding and support from the council.”
To read the report, click here.
