HADLEY — The Hadley Police Department has named its first-ever full-time detective and is boosting its full-time ranks from 11 to 14 officers.
The need for more officers in a growing Hadley was apparent, Chief Michael A. Mason said. But it still took some budget jiu jitsu and staffing adjustments to make the hiring bump possible.
The additions are the first staffing increase for the department in 15 years, officials said, made possible by a $50,000 increase in the department’s budget this fiscal year.
Additionally, Mason said the department has been able to cut down on overtime costs since he’s taken over the reigns as police chief. And shifting some money away from the department’s part-time budget to be used for full-time employees made the hiring possible, he said.
With officer and union buy-in, the department has adjusted its “minimum mandatories” policy — which requires “us to put a certain number of officers on the road regardless of whether or not we needed them,” Mason said.
“We always had to fill them (minimum mandatory shifts) with overtime,” he added. “That’s one of the things that killed us.”
Another change was an adjustment to “first right of refusal” — a policy giving full-time officers first dibs at open shifts.
“When you have first right of refusal and minimum mandatories together, you’re at a complete disadvantage as far as the overtime spending goes,” Mason said.
He said he worked to win over officers who had become accustomed to receiving overtime pay as part of their income.
“Without buy-in from the officers there was no way it would’ve worked,” Mason said.
This past fiscal year, the first full budget year since Mason took over the reigns as chief, overtime costs were a touch over $108,000, Mason said, a decline from the previous three fiscal years, when overtime exceeded $160,000 each year.
The town’s 5,250-person population has increased, up almost 10 percent between 2000 and 2010, according to U.S. Census numbers.
At the same time, calls to the department have increased.
Sgt. Douglas Costa said in 2000 the department responded to 5,688 calls. Last year officers responded to 10,981 calls — a 93 percent jump.
Retail has also grown in Hadley, a reason for at least some of the call volume increase, Costa said. In 2000, for example, the department investigated 134 shoplifting or larceny incidents; last year the figure was 265.
Breaking and entering cases — which include car break-ins in retail parking lots — have also increased since 2000, from 31 reports that year to 62 last year.
With the staffing increase, the department has also shifted officers into other, concrete roles. Besides the detective role, the department is also designating a school resource officer, traffic safety officer and community outreach officer.
Some of the new roles include absorbing existing department duties or are on top of regular patrolling duties.
Contact Jack Suntrup at jsuntrup@gazettenet.com.