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A UNIQUE APPROACH TO AN OLD PROBLEM

By Cpl. Michael O’Toole
Brea, CA, Police Department

Agencies are constantly being mandated to increase services without a corresponding increase in the budget. The lack of qualified candidates has caused a number of agencies to embrace a variety of unique deployment plans. 

In the 1960s, common deployment plans utilized an eight hour day, five days per week. In the 1970s, a large number of departments created a new scheduling plan which deployed personnel ten hours per day, four days per week.

In the 1980s and 1990s, the three day, twelve hour plan was introduced and has become very popular and somewhat of a standard.The three-twelve deployment plan utilizes three twelve hour days per week. This plan has spread across the country in a variety of configurations, most of which include some type of “makeup day” to accommodate for the 36 hour weeks.

Present-day Problems

Now, as the new century begins, the need to effectively deploy limited numbers of qualified personnel is paramount. The public does not consider how long an officer has to work; how much time he or she spends with his or her family; how much it might cost in overtime; or the lack of personnel in the labor pool. 

However, what the public does want is an immediate response to calls for service. Like the water that flows into our houses for cooking, showers, and cleaning, we only consider it when it does not work.  

As an example, a department which utilizes a four day, ten hour deployment plan and requires minimum field strengths of eight to nine officers 24 hours per day, will need 40 officers to achieve that goal. That same department, if it employs a twelve hour workday, can also expect to field eight officers 24 hours a day. However, if that same department utilizes some creativity, those 40 officers can be deployed with field strength of ten officers per shift.

One Notable Solution

Recently, the Brea Police Department, in Orange County, California, overcame the problem of too few officers, too many shifts to fill, and a mandate to reduce the budget. The Brea Police Department is in the unique and favorable situation of providing police services to the neighboring city of Yorba Linda. This requires a minimum deployment to meet the needs of that contract. In the early 1970s, in order to meet those contractual needs, the Brea Police Department chose to deploy patrol officers on a four-ten work schedule. The four-ten schedule provided for an economical utilization of resources. Deploying five separate shifts, with only one and one half hours of overlap, mitigated the problem of a significant overlap. However, this streamlined deployment plan had a number of inherent problems. One problem was that leave time was difficult to grant without creating overtime.  

The dilemma was how to increase staffing levels and provide for the ability to grant more leave time without increasing overtime. Returning to a five-eight plan was briefly considered, but rejected on a number of issues, not the least of which was the perceived difficulty involving recruitment and retention. A twelve hour workday was considered, but also rejected, based on insufficient numbers of personnel assigned to the patrol division.

How It’s Being Done   

The solution is an innovative deployment plan called the twelve-eleven. Officers are divided into four teams of ten officers each. Teams either work days or nights with staggered start times. Teams of officers work three twelve hour shifts in week number one of a two week cycle, and then work four eleven hour shifts in the second week for a total of 80 hours, eliminating the need for a payback day later in the month. 

Other departments employ a similar plan which has patrol officers divided up into three shifts: a morning, evening and cover shift. The Brea Police Department does not have the luxury of a large patrol force to allow deploying three shifts per day. The solution is to stagger the start times. 

Starting at 0600, three team members from team one (day shift) arrive for duty. At 0630, two more arrive with two to three members arriving every half hour until 0800 when the whole team is on duty in the field. The first two members of team three (night shift) arrive at 1700. Two more arrive at 1730 with two to three members arriving every half hour until 2000 when the whole team is on duty in the field. These staggered start times allow for a natural overlap of officers.  

The team concept and team definition are critical department priorities. All officers on a team have the same days off every week and work the majority of the shift together along with their team sergeants. This allows for group activities outside of the work environment, as well as group training on mutual days off. The team concept creates a familiarity among the officers by working together to solve problems and calls for service. An added benefit of the team concept is that the sergeant who is writing the officer’s annual performance evaluation is now working with that officer every day.  

With a compressed workweek, the number of days off per year change.

On a normal four-ten work schedule, the officers receive twelve days off every four weeks. On a three-twelve plan, those same officers receive fifteen days off per four week cycle. However, the officers who work the twelve-eleven plan receive fourteen days off every four weeks or 24 additional days off every year.

Information Sharing

With the staggered start times, the traditional predeployment briefings became impossible. This was a major obstacle to overcome. A way to share information and inform officers of events had to be developed. An additional innovation employed in Brea, as a direct result of technology, allows officers to view E-mail on the mobile data computer in the police units. The ability to view and send information has eliminated the need to reread briefing information at the beginning of each shift. The computers in the units allow for briefing information to be saved and retrieved as needed. For those officers who do not have access to a computer in their unit, “briefing bulletins” were developed. A bulletin is developed on a daily basis and made available to the officers. The bulletin contains pertinent information the officer would normally receive at a briefing and this bulletin is carried out into the field with the officer. With the bulletin, the inherent problem of officers incorrectly writing down important information is no longer an issue.  

The team members coming to work must meet up with a supervisor before going on duty. During the course of the week, it is incumbent upon the supervisor to meet with his team members to discuss a wide variety of issues normally covered in a predeployment briefing (personnel issues, training, etc.). Most of the teams have started having weekly meetings to gain back some of the information and interaction which was lost without predeployment briefings. The information covered in the weekly briefings, along with the E-mail system and the bulletins, allows for officers to be more informed and up-to-date.

A Popular Plan

This new and innovative plan offers a benefit to the officers, the city and, ultimately, the citizens we serve. The officers work in a team environment and enjoy additional time off. The city realizes a reduction in the amount of overtime used to meet minimum staffing to cover leave time.  Prior to the implementation of the twelve-eleven plan, the patrol division used 1060 hours of leave time during the month of June (2001). Of those hours, 536 hours of overtime were necessary to maintain minimum staffing. Following the implementation of the twelve-eleven plan in June of 2002, the patrol division used 1089 hours of leave time. Of that, only 279 hours of overtime was necessary to maintain minimum staffing. The implementation of the twelve-eleven plan resulted in a 48 percent reduction in overtime usage during that one month. Similar reductions have occurred during the remainder of the year. In addition, the twelve-eleven plan has become a valuable recruitment tool with higher morale among employees.  

The greatest benefit is to the citizens because there are more officers in the field due to a more effective deployment of resources.

About the Author: Michael O’Toole has been a police officer for the past 16 years. His career started out in 1985 with the Azusa Police Department in southern California. The last 14 years, he has been employed with the city of Brea (also in southern California). Mike’s education includes a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Cal State Fullerton and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of LaVerne.

Mike is currently assigned as a corporal in the patrol division. His duties include field training, scheduling, and general patrol.