STAFF REPORT
The City of Kyle Police Department has been growing as fast as it can for the past five years, but still not as fast as the city in which it serves. In order to meet the department’s mission to protect and serve the community, officers have been working more and more overtime to fill gaps created when officers need to be off their patrols for court appearances, training and vacations.
The officers have worked typical 8-hour shifts in the past, meaning three shifts in a day and three transition periods each day. This also allowed for less leeway for scheduling officers away from their regular duties.
After about a month of brainstorming to work out the details of how moving to 12-hour shifts might work to improve the efficiency of the department, the new plan was finalized and put in action.
“The officers and support staff really came together to work out the kinks and make this happen,” said assistant city manager James R. Earp. “If the numbers from our first week of this rotation work out, the 12-hour shift scheduling, as well as other operational changes, will have a significant reduction in our overtime.”
If the first week of the new schedule is any indication, the department’s overtime can be reduced dramatically, officials say. The average overtime hours for the previous six weeks prior to the schedule change was 165 hours per week. The first week of 12-hour shifts yielded 36 hours of overtime, a reduction of 78 percent.
Other efficiencies implemented to reduce overtime include removing the mandatory supervisor requirement which allows supervisors on select shifts to be “On Call”, saving man-hours for shifts that require more attention and not requiring officers to stay past their shift to finish reports.
“We are very pleased with the initial results of this new schedule,” said Earp. “Once these positions are filled, we will have even greater flexibility with our scheduling.”
The Kyle Police Department currently has 25 sworn officers in the department and are working to fill an additional nine positions, including the police chief position.
The city of Kyle has been one of the fastest growing ciwties in Texas for much of the last decade, growing from a population of 5,314 in the 2000 census, to 28,026 in the latest census.
