COVID-19 spike putting pressure on police departments' overtime budgets

The Marlborough Police Department had been doing well since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, with only a few officers needing to be quarantined — and then the omicron variant hit.

Now things are different, Chief David Giorgi said.

“Since Christmas Day, we have had at least 20 officers go into isolation due to becoming symptomatic, being exposed to someone who is COVID positive, or testing positive for COVID themselves,” he said. “We have used a combination of putting officers on overtime, as well as pulling some of our specialty positions (community police and traffic unit) out on a day-to-day basis to cover some of the open shifts.”

Marlborough is not alone. Several police departments throughout MetroWest and Greater Milford have been hit hard by COVID-19 over the past couple months. Departments have had to use forced overtime and even redeploy specialty officers to fill patrol positions on various shifts while other officers are recovering from the virus.

Milford was hit particularly hard during the holidays, as several officers were on vacation at the same time and at least a dozen officers had contracted COVID-19, acting Police Chief Jim Falvey said.

“We got hammered,” he said. “It was really compounded because we had a lot of people on vacation. We had to force a lot of people to work overtime. Needless to say, the overtime budget is overrun. You do what you can. I’m really worried (about) what will happen with the newer variant.”

In Ashland, there five officers were out with COVID-19 during a recent 10-day period, acting Police Chief Rich Briggs said.

“We typically fill the vacancies created with voluntary overtime and forced overtime,” he said. “We have had to reassign several specialty officers back to uniformed patrol due to current staffing levels, including detectives and school resource officers.”

In Holliston and Hudson, several officers been off-duty due to COVID-19. But both Holliston Police Chief Matt Stone and Hudson Police Chief Richard DiPersio said they have been able to handle the staffing issues with overtime, rather than redeploying specialty officers.

“Certainly, if numbers get worse we may have to make adjustments,” said Stone. “For now, open shifts are backfilled with overtime and so far we haven't had an issue filling the open shifts. Keeping my fingers crossed that we aren't affected more than we are now.”

DiPersio said: “We will reassign personnel as needed but have not as of yet. We don’t like to reassign unless it’s absolutely necessary, as doing so creates a void and an interruption in service elsewhere.”

Not all police departments are being hit hard. In Franklin, police officers work a four on/four off shift, which allows an infected officer to use scheduled days off for most of the quarantine period, and makes it easier to fill open positions, Police Chief Thomas Lynch said.

“Right now, we’ve been dealing with it well,” he said. “I think 90% of the officers have been vaccinated. I’m not sure how many have been boosted. We’ve been pounding them with information about getting boosted, but I know most are vaccinated, which has helped.”

Framingham police have had some officers contract COVID-19, but since it happened after the holiday season, they’re running at close to full staff because most officers aren’t using vacation time at this time of the year.

“We’re not really running under our normal levels of staffing,” police spokeswoman Lt. Rachel Mickens said.

New CDC guidelines in regards to isolation have prevented the recent surge from being worse than it is, said Girogi in Marlborough.

“The CDC changes in the COVID isolation guidelines have helped us, as many of the officers are only out for five days and then can return to work and wear a mask at all times,” he said.

Norman Miller can be reached at 508-626-3823 or nmiller@wickedlocal.com. For up-to-date public safety news, follow Norman Miller on Twitter @Norman_MillerMW or on Facebook at facebook.com/NormanMillerCrime.

This article originally appeared on MetroWest Daily News: Recent COVID-19 spike forces police departments to use overtime