The Montgomery County Police Department has reduced the amount of time an officer is assigned a desk job because of an injury or other condition from an average of 249 days in 2006 to 189 days in 2008, police officials said.
Average percentage of uniformed staff on light duty:Department; fiscal 2006;
fiscal 2007; fiscal 2008 » Corrections; 6%; 3%; 3%» Fire; 5%; 4.8%; 4.7%» Police; 3.3%; 3.4%; 3.2%
Source: Montgomery County government
The county’s public safety supervisors said they have begun keeping closer tabs on injured or pregnant police officers, firefighters and prison guards to make sure they are not wasting taxpayers’ money by being unproductive.
How police officers on assignment known as “light duty” spend their time became a concern of the County Council a few years ago when it approved assigning a captain to oversee the 50 or so officers who are on light duty at any given time, said Council President Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville.
“The feeling was that it was important to have more structure there than there was at the time — in terms of supervision, tracking and ensuring appropriate assignments,” Andrews said at a County Council panel meeting Thursday.
He said he asked for an update because about 100 public safety employees are assigned to light duty at any time.
“It’s enough officers that it’s important to review how the program is going,” he said.
Lengthy light-duty assignments are costly because the county has to pay overtime to full-duty employees to pick up the slack, county officials said, though they did not provide the total costs of light-duty assignments at Thursday’s hearing.
Capt. Diane McCarthy said the police department was “haphazard” in assigning tasks to light-duty officers before she began managing the light-duty program in 2005. But now, she said, the department closely monitors them to make sure they are assigned useful tasks and return to full duty as soon as possible.
Other department heads had similar reports, and said that their departments were working to reduce employee accidents and promote healthy lifestyles.
Reasons to be assigned to light duty include breaks and sprains, recovering from surgery, and being pregnant. Tasks for public safety employees include data entry, background investigations and clerical duties.
