Staff ‘stretched to the limit’

George Krooglik said resources were so tight some officers who were supposed to receive every fourth weekend off had been forced to work up to 13 in a row.

The senior constable said despite population growth in the past 25 years, the Albury station was still not able to man any more than two general duties cars per night.

“Whilst on some occasions the staffing levels allow a third car on Friday or Saturday, that’s the exception rather than the rule,” the vice-chairman of the NSW Police Association’s Albury branch said.

“That is, I guess, a pretty blunt indicator of how tight our resources are.”

Mr Krooglik said staff shortages were a statewide issue but Albury had been overlooked in the allocation of extra troops.

“Unfortunately, policing numbers have been politicised so much — this is not within Albury — that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so to speak, and other stations have historically had far greater numbers issued to them rather than Albury,” he said.

“We seem to be a backwater for the attention of headquarters staff in allocating appropriate numbers of police.”

Mr Krooglik, who spoke with The Border Mail in his union capacity rather than as an officer, said management sometimes failed to adhere to its first-response requirements to have a minimum of seven general duties officers on each shift.

“In fairness to management, I understand that there are a number of police on sick report. It’s difficult working with one hand tied behind their back,” he said.

“(But) many of these absences were known in advance to management and they still, on occasions, choose to go under our minimum numbers.”

Supt Gary Commins said the Albury local area command was policed adequately and adjustments were made when needed.

“When we’ve got staff shortages due to illness and work-related incidents we’ve got to make do with the resources we have available to us — if that means rationalisation of resources across the entire LAC, we’ll do that,” he said.

“If police are required, if overtime is needed to fill areas, we’ll use overtime to do jobs.”