Glasgow Police is hiring more officers as community need increases

GLASGOW, Ky. (WBKO) – Keeping the community safe is the Glasgow Police Department’s number one priority, but recently Chief Guy Howie found that to be more difficult as the demand for police increases.

During a Glasgow City Council meeting on Oct. 14, he proposed adding two more officers to the staff.

“It’s necessary due to our increased call volume and the resulting decrease in our ability to be proactive in our enforcement efforts and our investigations,” he told the council during the meeting. “When the shifts are running short and calls begin to back up, the attention to detail and the attention to the investigations suffer. This is not a level of service that I expect for our citizens.”

This approved change will take the staff from 35 to 37 officers. During the meeting, Howie mentioned that out of the 35 they have now, some of them are in training, one is deployed overseas for a year, one is on medical leave and one was reassigned to the drug task force.

According to the chief, it puts a strain on the number of officers they assign to every shift. With the two new officers, they can aim to have five officers and one sergeant on a shift.

Howie also said he normally would not ask for a budget amendment at this time of year, which is why he needed the council’s approval to put this into the police department’s budget.

“I did it mid-year because of the amount of workload that we’re seeing and the amount of overtime that we’re having to use to cover shifts to supply the citizens of Glasgow with the protection they need,” he said.

According to Howie, the last payroll’s overtime totaled about $12,000, and the amount of service calls increased by nearly 10,000 from 2022 to 2023. He specified that drug overdoses have especially increased over the last year and that they are “trying to attack” the fentanyl and methamphetamine problem while tackling their other day-to-day operations.

“We’re seeing a lot more calls for service, especially in areas involving drug activity, mental health issues, theft, shoplifting, that type of thing,” Howie said. “Our violent crime calls aren’t going up as much as those property crimes are.”

The cost for both officers for a full year is $168,000. As they proceed with the hiring, Howie is also completing a manpower study to figure out if they may need even more officers.

“We’re going to do the study based upon our calls for service and the number of officers that are needed to handle those calls for service, the amount of time they spend on a call, and how much time we want them doing proactive policing .”

Glasgow Police are currently in the hiring process. They hope that they will be onboarded by mid-November. Depending on their experience, they will either start training at the police academy or begin on the job fairly soon after.