The Cullman Police Department is preparing to add a third, overlapping shift to its current rotation, a step aimed at allocating manpower to the times each day when demand for law enforcement is at its peak.

After the first of the new year, the department will begin phasing in the new shift schedule as the needed personnel become available.

The change won’t create any new positions for additional police officers. Rather, it simply reduces the number of officers working during times of light call volume, while increasing the number on shift during the busiest hours of the day.

What times are the busiest? According to a five-month data assessment done by the city’s information technology staff, the department receives its greatest average call volume between the hours of 11 a.m. and 11 p.m.

Those, said Police Chief Kenny Culpepper, will be the assigned hours for the new mid-day shift.

We run two shifts right now: from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m., which is our day shift; and from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m., which is night shift. This mid-shift will overlap both of those by six hours each, from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.

“It’s going to be a smaller shift, in terms of officers working that shift, since it overlaps with the other,” he explained. “Right now, the plans are for four people to work the mid-shift: a sergeant and three officers. So, along with the existing shift, and depending on personnel availability, it’ll put us at nine or 10 officers working during the busier timeframe — versus the six or seven officers we have working those hours now.

“Essentially, we’re trying to match our existing resources and manpower to our call volume and demand.”

The data study revealed, for instance, that the department received a total of 123 calls between the hours of 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. over the five-month period. But the call volume between the hours of 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. stood much higher, at 423.

“You can see the difference,” said Culpepper. “It doesn’t make sense to have the same number of officers on duty from 3 a.m. to 4 a.m. as there are from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. The study has allowed us to review that and adjust to it.”

In preparation for the change, the Cullman City Council recently approved the designation of two new police sergeant positions, so that each shift — which will be manned by two rotations of officers over a seven-day work week — will have its own supervising officer.

“We have to have a supervisor on shift to be responsible for our people,” explained Culpepper. Otherwise, they’d be handed off between the supervisors on the day and night shifts, and there would be no continuity of supervision. And it will give us additional supervisory resources during the busiest hours of the day, which we will need.”

The sergeants’ roles will be filled from within the department, and don’t add to its total number of employees.

“Until we get some of the personnel replaced who’ve recently retired, we won’t have the available resources to fully implement everything all at once,” said Culpepper. “But we’re excited about it, because it’s going to be a better service for the public once it’s fully in place.”