Interim Portsmouth police chief tackles staffing

PORTSMOUTH

The new interim police chief says the department is reviewing staffing to ensure that officers are assigned where they are most needed.

William Corvello, named interim chief after Chief Edward Long's sudden resignation was announced May 6, said in an interview that he's looking at ways to focus staffing on problem areas.

Corvello said he's taking a long, hard look at overtime and that it shouldn't be used in routine situations.

Overtime issues surfaced in a February memo from Chief Financial Officer Betty J. Burrell. Burrell informed Long that 71 percent of the year's budgeted overtime had been spent and that the department was on track to deplete its overtime money by the end of March. Portsmouth's fiscal year runs through June.

To limit overtime, Long outlined a plan in March that reassigned some officers to fill other shifts. That included reassigning six officers and a sergeant attached to the Power Shift, a unit that had worked peak crime hours throughout the city. Under Long's plan, the officers were placed on regular midnight shifts.

Long wrote in a memo to the city manager that most overtime shifts in uniform patrol were due to "a shortage in the number of officers scheduled to work on any given night" and that although the reassignments were a short-term fix, a longer term solution was needed.

Patrol makes up the largest division in the department, which has about 250 sworn officers.

Corvello said he woul d like to restore the Power Shift permanently once a study of patrol operations is completed. He said he is not sure when the study will be finished.

He also said the city's bike officers are used sparingly and that he'd like to establish routine bike patrols downtown and in troubled neighborhoods.

Corvello, a retired state police superintendent, is expected to be in the job for several months while Portsmouth seeks a permanent chief.

Officers said Corvello has been riding along with police on some shifts, appearing at roll calls and even dropping in at a Fraternal Order of Police meeting.

He has made no major decisions to date, he said, but is compiling a list of departmental needs.

"Most of what I've found so far are really not major items," he said. "They're administrative points, like forensics needs another position." Such changes, he said, will help operations and bolster morale.

Matthew Roy, (757) 446-2540, matthew.roy@pilotonline.com