NORWICH – The City of Norwich Police Department is likely to exceed its annual overtime budget this year as occasional staffing shortages and a growing drug epidemic in the city have called for officers to work longer hours.

The police department was allocated $91,000 for overtime hours in the 2012 city budget. Of that, nearly $20,000 was reserved for the state reimbursed Stop DWI Program and the Selective Traffic Enforcement Program that also require officers to work a little extra. The remaining $71,000 is used to cover the overtime costs incurred due to sick and personal time, officer training, vacation days, quality of life issues, criminal investigations, arrests made near the end of a shift, and a number of other situations that call for extra time in uniform for the 19 officers on the payroll, explained Police Chief Joseph Angelino.

Thus far, the police department has used up more than 1,600 hours of overtime this year, leaving just over $10,000 available for overtime services for the rest of the year. In 2011, 2,500 hours of officer overtime was logged and expectations are to exceed that before the end of this year, said Angelino.