A push to hire more police officers has left Denver’s police force temporarily overstaffed while the Fire Department is filling vacant positions with overtime.
The upshot means the city will have to dip into reserves to pay overtime for firefighters and to pay the salaries of extra police officers to keep the budget balanced at the close of this year.
A committee of the Denver City Council on Wednesday forwarded to the full council the supplemental budget requests. The city had expected between 80 and 85 police officers to retire this year. Instead, 45 to 50 have retired.
With a new class of 65 recruits hitting the streets this month, that leaves the city with about 65 more police officers than the 1,447 it had budgeted.
Mel Thompson, the city’s deputy safety manager, said the overstaffing will disappear as officers retire.
Still, the city will have to dip into reserves by $2.5 million to pay for the overstaffing this year, Thompson said.
Meanwhile, at the Fire Department, overtime will cost the city $2.6 million, half of which will be reimbursed by other jurisdictions such as California, which asked Denver to help fight some major fires this year.
Thompson said that next year the city plans to hire more firefighters to avoid similar overtime problems.
Typically, the city spends about half its reserves. This year, the city expects to exhaust the $16.7 million fund to pay for unexpected costs, including last winter’s blizzards.
The city’s budget for 2008 will restore the reserve fund, however.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
