Atwater police using reserves

ATWATER -- With two officers out after suffering injuries on the job, the Atwater Police Department's overtime budget is under pressure.

Interim Police Chief Frank Pietro said overtime is "extremely high" not only because of the two injured officers, but because of three positions the city froze to save money.

The most recent injury came about three months ago when an officer was moving a handcuffed suspect who grabbed the officer's thumb and twisted it, Pietro said. The thumb was sprained but not broken.

He'll be back on modified duty soon, Pietro noted.

The other officer suffered an ankle injury about seven months ago, he said.

"When you're a small department, when you have two officers down on top of what we have down already that we weren't allowed to fill because of financial issues, it makes it tough," Pietro said, adding that the department has 12 officers left.

Frozen positions include the former chief's position and two corporal positions, spots that weren't filled after the employees retired.

To combat the overtime without compromising public safety, Pietro's using a couple of level-one reserve officers who are certified in Peace Officer Standards and Training. Because reserves get less pay than the full-time officers, reserve officers can prevent excessive overtime that not only hurts the city's books, but can put fatigued officers at risk, he said.

"If you're working someone 12 to 14 hours a day, they're bound to eventually make a mistake because they're exhausted," Pietro said.

This isn't the first time overtime has spiked in the department because of injured officers. In 2010, city officials proposed hiring two officers to save overtime costs, which totaled more than $300,000 the previous year.

Although the city's budget is tight, Councilman Craig Mooneyham, who's on the city's Public Safety Committee, said the city should continue to evaluate its spending to see if hiring an officer to reduce overtime makes fiscal sense.