Craig Daily Press

Craig — Calls for service to the Craig Police Department have increased by roughly 13 percent each year for the past five years, statistics show.

However, numbers released this week on the first eight months of 2008 indicate that streak may end this year.

Police Chief Walt Vanatta reported to the Craig City Council on Tuesday that calls for service through July have decreased by about 1,500 calls, or 16 percent, from the same time last year.

An analysis of the call numbers reflect “substantial decreases” in reports of crimes such as criminal complaints, child abuse and harassment.

“There’s a reduction,” Vanatta said. “There could be a lot of reasons for that. It could be partially related to the economy — people are not going out as much.”

Decreases in the number of abandoned vehicles, another type of call cited in Vanatta’s report as lessening from a year ago, can be attributed to code enforcement officers “making progress on reducing the number of abandoned vehicles in town, which has led to a decrease in the numbers we are tagging, towing, etc.,” the police chief wrote in his report.

Last year’s passage of a revised alarm ordinance — a law that allows for charging higher fees for responding to false alarms — has lead to a decrease in alarms, he added.

But, an overwhelming reason for the reduction in calls lies with staffing issues, Vanatta said. The Police Department is short three full-time officers, he said.

“You start looking at the numbers, and it’s obvious some of them are related to a shortage of staff,” Vanatta said. “It has a direct impact.”

Being short staffed can sometimes mean fewer officers on the streets and reduced bar checks, arrests, security checks, follow-up investigations and traffic stops, he said.

“With fewer officers available,” he wrote in his report to the council, “there is a reduction in discretionary patrol time to do some of those activities.”

Adding to the difficulty is that officers on duty are now answering more complex, time consuming calls, Vanatta said, thereby reducing time available for other duties.

“One kind of feeds off the other,” he said.

The Police Department is in the process of filling its vacancies; one officer has been hired, and two more are going through a screening process.

The experience level of the new hires will determine the amount of training needed and the timetable by which the new officers will be working, Vanatta said.