GREENWOOD — The Greenwood Police Department is stretched thin and now, it's looking to buy out officer's paid time off.
The goal is to put money in the officer's pockets, while keeping the community safe.
Greenwood PD said in some cases, officers are being called off PTO due to staffing needs. Because of that, the department asked the council to approve paying the officers for their time off, so they'll have more on the streets.
"We don't want them to have to lose their actual paid time off because they've been sacrificing for the department," Lt. Matt Fillenwarth said. "The city is trying to get all these new young officers trained up."
Fillenwarth says the minimum number of officers required per shift is seven. If that quota isn't met, paid time off isn't approved.
"Well, to a certain extent, you haven't been able to call off or you haven't been able to schedule vacation because we're at shift minimums," said Fillenwarth. “You can have the vacation time, but if the shift you work is already at minimum, you’re not going to get approved and that’s not the fault of the officers.”
The department has around 73 officers. It’s short four, but it’s in the process of training 18. Fillenwarth says that process plays a major role regarding the lack of call offs.
“From the time you hire them until you give them the keys to a squad car is almost a year, so when you have that many trainees, you’ve got your senior officers training them so they can’t take time off,” Fillenwarth said. “We don’t count them towards minimum staffing because you can’t turn them loose.”
To make up for that, Greenwood PD asked the common council to approve taking money from the police department's budget for salaries to pay out officers' PTO.
“Anything above 80 hours, we’re just asking they be reimbursed for that time,” Fillenwarth said. “I’m sure most of them would rather have time off and go on vacation so this is the next best thing we can ask for.”
Fillenwarth said it unanimously passed the common council this week.
"We're looking at maybe $8,000 to $10,000 in that fund to be able to reimburse these officers," Fillenwarth said.
The officers still get their regular days off and some offer to work overtime.
“I mean, we appreciate their sacrifice and dedication to the department. I’ve been here 29 years and we’ve never hired this many any year. We’ve never had the recruitment issues that we have now, just trying to get people to want to do this job.”
The department says it's hopeful it won't have to make this request again next year and will have an adequate number of trained officers.
