Monterey Park Police Go to 3-Day Week : Labor: Department gets City Council approval of 12 1/2-hour shifts to cut overtime pay and boost morale.

City police officers on patrol have started working three days a week, 12 1/2 hours a day, under a new schedule for the force approved by the City Council.

The council voted 4 to 1 Monday night to approve the schedule, which was pushed by Police Department officials and took effect immediately.

Department officials predict the three-day workweek plan--which is used in El Monte, West Covina, and several beach cities--will drastically reduce overtime costs, boost employee morale and improve retention of officers.

Monterey Park officers had been on a four-day workweek of 10-hour shifts. But as many as six vacancies during the past year on the 74-member force required many officers to work extra shifts, resulting in soaring overtime costs, city officials say.

Police Capt. Daniel Cross said the new plan will solve the overtime problem because it divides the workday into two shifts rather than three, thereby lessening the number of positions that are unstaffed. One shift will work from 6 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and the other will start at 6 p.m. and end at 6:30 a.m.

“You’re wiping out that middle shift, and it actually increases the amount of people per shift,” he said.

Because three 12 1/2-hour shifts add up to a 37 1/2-hour workweek, officers will have to make up the remaining 2 1/2 hours per week, officials said. Most of the officers probably will fulfill this obligation by working in emergency situations.

The department first experimented with the three-day workweek in mid-May and found that, during a 55-day trial period, overtime wages amounted to $7,125. That contrasts with $21,895 spent on four-day workweek overtime during the previous 55 days.

During the 1989-90 fiscal year that ended June 30, the department’s overtime costs totaled $154,797 with the four-day workweek. Cross estimates the new schedule will save the department $60,000 to $70,000 annually.

A survey in June found that the overwhelming majority of the department’s 37 patrol officers preferred the new workweek. Out of 36 who responded, all but one said it had a positive effect on their lives and that they would like the department to adopt it.

Ten of those surveyed said it allowed them to spend more time with their families. Nine, however, said they experienced more fatigue as a result of the 12 1/2-hour shifts.

The one patrol officer who was dissatisfied with the plan was transferred to the detective’s bureau, where he works a regular eight-hour shift, Cross said.

Cross and Wesley Clair, president of the Monterey Park Police Officers Assn., told the council Monday night that the three-day workweek is a big plus for officers who commute long distances because it would allow them to make fewer trips per week.

The police captain said the “vast majority” of the city’s police officers live at least as far east as San Dimas, where housing is more affordable than in the western San Gabriel Valley.

He also credited the new schedule with improving morale, saying it currently is “as high as it’s ever been over the past year.”

Cross and Clair said they expect the new work schedule will increase the number of applicants for patrol jobs and improve the department’s chances of keeping good officers.

In recent years, the department suffered from low morale and increasing numbers of resignations, especially during the tenure of former Police Chief Kenneth Hickman. In March, Hickman resigned after a unanimous vote of no-confidence from the Police Officers Assn. He had been embroiled in a series of disputes over working conditions with the association and was blamed for a rash of resignations of officers.

Hickman, who was replaced by Robert W. Collins, rejected the three-day workweek plan when it was proposed to him, Clair said.

Casting the lone vote Monday night against the new work schedule was Councilman Samuel Kiang. Although Kiang expressed support for the plan, he wanted the anticipated savings used to hire two new officers.

But Mayor Judy Chu disagreed and at her suggestion, the council voted to set aside the savings for police salary increases.