The City of Westfield police headquarters located on Washington St. (WNG file photo)
WESTFIELD- To dispel ongoing social media rumors, The Westfield Police Department says that there is currently no active plan to pull school resource officers from their current posts to fill shifts.
Such a plan would only be under consideration if the staffing crisis becomes worse, but authorities said it is not something that they are planning for yet. The potential consideration comes amid staffing and overtime budget constraints that leave the Westfield Police Department struggling to fill its normal patrol shifts.
“It’s a staffing issue due to injuries and military deployments,” said Captain Larry Valliere.
During Tuesday’s City Council Finance Committee meeting, Councilors Dan Allie, Matt Emmershy, and Andrew Surprise unanimously approved a $100,000 boost to the police department’s overtime budget. The extra money will ease the financial strain of having officers work more overtime to keep the shifts running at a minimum. However, injuries, military deployment, and some officers leaving the department have continued to make it more difficult to fill the shifts, despite the extra money.
“Once we get people back from injuries and hire new reserve and provisional officers this will be less of an issue,” said Captain Valliere.
Captain Valliere noted that the use of school resource officers to fill patrol shifts is still under consideration and is not confirmed to be happening yet. If such a plan is to be put in place, it is unclear how many of the officers would be moved to patrol shifts.
“We are praying that some of our injured can go back to duty soon. It doesn’t look too well at this time,” said Chief John Camerota during December’s Police Commission meeting, “We have two officers joining the State Police Academy in January. We have another officer going to the Springfield Police Academy in January, and two officers scheduled to be deployed for a year.”
Camerota later added that in the four decades that he has been on the police force, he has never seen staffing issues quite like this.
