Minimums:
The department sets a staffing number for each shift. This is the minimum. West Precinct’s Afternoon shift, during the week, has a minimum shift of 17. In 2009, when I came to West, the minimums were 25. Being under minimums, means the shift has less than the targeted staffing number. Two under (or minus 2) on West Afternoons would be 15 officers working instead of 17.
West has 20 districts. At minimums, three districts will be empty.
When you work below minimums, more districts are left empty creating work more for officers.
The Overtime myth:
An officer works 10 hours a shift. One hour is spent gearing up, talking to supervisors, at roll call, and checking out cars. 40 minutes is spent on breaks and lunch (if an officer has the time in his call load to take coffee or a meal break). This leaves 8.3 hours for patrol.
When the shift is below minimums due to staffing issues due to training, sickness, court, injuries, vacation, etc. The sergeants will hire officers to work overtime. Few overtime officers will come in on their day off to work a shift. Most officers working overtime come in early from later shift or stay late from an earlier shift.
Common Examples:
Patrick works Dayshift. He agrees to work overtime to fill a slot. Since he worked day shift that day, he starts his afternoon shift at 5 pm when his shift ends instead of 4 pm when Afternoons starts. Patrick will work until Night Shift starts at 10 PM, so he can go home and sleep before his next shift starts at 7 AM. Patrick is paid for 5 hours, but with meal time and time to put away his gear, he is only working 4 hours. However, on the shift roster, Patrick counts as filling a a full slot for the purposes of meeting Minimums, even though he is not working for 5 hours.
Likewise, Sara works Night shift. She agrees to come into work Afternoons until her Night Shift starts. She works from 4 PM to 10 PM on Afternoons, but then becomes at Night Shift officer. She works 6 hours, but counts as taking a full slot.
So when you are two below, you are 20 man power hours below Minimums. If you hire 5 on overtime, but are still at two below Minimums, most of those officers are coming in early or are hold over from Day shift. Let’s say 2 officers are holding over , two are working the full shift, and one is coming in early. That means, the shift is down 34 manpower officers instead of the 20 it appears on paper. Essentially, you are reducing the actual staffing by another officer and a third.
If all five of the officers are coming in early or staying over, the greater the overall manpower loss.
Since all shifts are hiring in this fashion, staffing is a shell game.
Afternoons might be -2 with 5 on overtime, but Night shift is down 2 and hiring an Afternoons officer to hold over.
There is always a hole. Officers are working long shifts burning themselves out and officers working straight time having to cover the holes in staffing are not faring much better.
