Ledyard — Amid overages in the overtime budget, the Finance Committee is examining the possibility of adding one or two full-time officers to the police force.

A number of unforeseen issues has resulted in the abnormally high overtime expenditures, police Chief John Rich told committee members on Dec. 7.

The primary cause was two service-related injuries that put officers out of commission for extended periods of time. One officer was out between June 16 and Jan. 3 after he was injured during a search, costing the department $52,000 in overtime pay. A sergeant also has not yet been able to return to work after surgery in December for an elbow injury.

Service calls, generated through dispatch and on patrol, also have increased significantly in the past year, which Rich said could be attributed in part to increased traffic patrols and school walkthroughs.

Currently the department has 20 officers, three below the cap set by town ordinance.

Lt. Kenneth Creutz, who schedules the shifts, said in years past the department had enough officers that one could be rescheduled, rather than resorting to overtime, to cover the department’s minimum patrol requirements.

Total overtime hours this year still are projected to be in the range of the past three years.

In addition, there have been a number of major investigations that the department has pursued since the last year.

Currently overtime spending in 2016-17 is $159,007, and is estimated to rise to between $247,125 and $296,550. Rich has been working with Finance Director Marcia Hancock to manage within the budget, including transferring $10,000 from a line item for holiday pay.

Rich and Creutz created a spreadsheet of the department's overtime costs and hours compared with previous years. The overtime budget has fluctuated in the past and expenditures have exceeded the budget by amounts similar to this year's projection.

“The actual number of hours (is) not totally out of line of what's happened in the past, it's actually a lower number of hours ... that’s good,” Rich said.

Given the amount of money the town is spending on overtime, Finance Committee Chairman Fred Allyn III said he believed "the Finance Committee feels the cost-benefit analysis of the situation may warrant the addition of an officer in the near term to counteract the impacts to the overtime budget."

The proposal estimates that two officers would cost around $146,640, or $73,320 per officer, if hired at the entry level with individual benefits.

Mayor Michael Finkelstein, who retired as a lieutenant from the department in 2015 and helped prepare the budget for years, said there were proposals to add officers 10 years ago in 2006, when staffing levels were similar.

"I think for many years we have budgeted best case," he said, when the fewest amount of overtime hours are used.

n.lynch@theday.com