WARREN - A collaboration between town officials and the International Brotherhood of Police, Local 470, has produced what union president, Patrolman Edward Borges, called a "safety net" for Warren police officers forced to work numerous overtime shifts due to a manpower shortage.

The stop gap measure — employing special police officers — is nothing new and was actually common a decade ago until the cost of insuring those individuals became prohibitive, said Police Chief Thomas D. Gordon.

But under the plan proposed by the union, the three special police officers, also known as non-certified police officers or reservists, pay the additional cost of insurance, roughly $1,000 a year, through a payroll deduction. They also pay for their own uniforms, but the department supplies firearms, Kevlar vests, radio equipment and leather gear. Reservists must also submit to 80 hours of in-house training for which they are not compensated.

Special officers are paid $15 an hour, while the overtime hourly rate of a senior patrolman, for example, is $31.84 an hour, Chief Gordon said.

The special officers currently employed each served as a reserve patrolman in the early 1990s. All three are members of the Steelworkers Union, Local 14845, in town. Gary Violett is a police and fire/rescue dispatcher and special detail constable, and both Scott Almeida and Randy Bryant work for the Warren Highway Department.

"When they were special officers before, they did well, and we thought we would start with people who had already performed the job," Chief Gordon said.

When an overtime situation arises, members of the regular force are asked to work the shift. If there are no takers, the request goes to the special officers.

Key to the plan, unanimously endorsed by the police union, is that regular officers get first right of refusal, said Officer Borges.

Chief Gordon said Officer Borges came to him with the proposal in May. After some back and forth negotiations and fine tuning, the pilot program was presented to the town council and approved.

Proposing plan was "risky"

Officer Borges said the strain of working "constantly" led to the plan that could ease the burden on officers like himself who work an average four to five extra shifts a week.

"It's a little cushion," he said.

Patrolman Borges, who has been a police officer in Warren since July, 1997, said his proposal called for six to 10 reserve officers. However, Chief Gordon and the council felt they would test the waters with three.

Despite the obvious benefits — more down time for overworked officers and a savings for taxpayers — implementing the program meant that town officials could come to rely solely on special officers to cope with the chronic manpower shortage and not heed the union's request to hire two to three more regular officers.

"It was definitely a risk we took," said Officer Borges, who added that the addition of reservists "has helped somewhat."

But he stressed that it is merely a Band-Aid on a problem that must be addressed.

Nevertheless, the availability of reserve officers has reduced instances of "order backs," mandatory shift assignments to cover minimum staffing. In other words, if there's a shift to fill, and all available police officers decline the overtime, one is called back in whether he wants to work or not. Now the three special officers provide a buffer.

Despite the absence of six officers (see box, Staffing Shortage), the situation this year is better than last year, when the town called in the state police to man the third shift.

"Last year at this time, we were down to 12 officers when two were serving in Iraq and two were at the police training academy," Chief Gordon said. For a time, for a variety of reasons, that number plummeted to 10.

He said he believes the three special officers have certainly helped, particularly on nights and weekends.

"It's allowed people who have been working those shifts to have nights and weekends off," he said.

Although the three reservists received no instruction at the Rhode Island Municipal Police Training Academy, they were trained in-house, receiving 40 hours of classroom training and at least another 40 hours of field training — patrolling in cruisers with seasoned officers. They also received psychological and medical screenings.

And they are "very, very supervised," Chief Gordon said.

Although the three men are allowed to patrol in cruisers, by themselves, the chief said they often ride with other officers. Their duties also include walking patrol. They do carry firearms and are authorized to make arrests.

Officer Borges, who conducted the in-house training himself, said he has no qualms about their ability to get the job done.

"They're not municipally trained (did not attend the academy), but their purpose is to watch my back and I have confidence in them."

Former reservists, now regular police

The special police officers program has provided the town with a number of regular police officers over the years. Warren Police Chief Thomas Gordon, a former special police officer himself, said it's not uncommon for men and women to turn the part-time job as reservist into a full-time career as a member of the force.

The following Warren police officers were once special police:

* Police Chief Thomas D. Gordon

* Detective Sgt. Roy Borges (reservist in East Providence)

* Sgt. Roland Brule

* Detective David Annunziata

* Patrolman Kenneth Medeiros

* Patrolman Joel Camara

BY DENISE KINNEY

dkinney@eastbaynewspapers.com