When the 911 center in Cary gets busy, dispatchers must prioritize calls by the severity of the situation. This means some people will wait longer for an officer to respond.
"We've had some 25 to 30 calls at one time, stacked. It may be quite a while before an officer can get to those. But I think a reorganization will help tremendously," says Riley Godley, communications supervisor for the Town of Cary.
A new reorganization of the Cary Police Department promises to put more officers on the street during peak hours -- late afternoon and early evening.
Eleven officers will be promoted. This means more supervisors on each shift and more supervisors in the field.
Chief Windy Hunter says another part of the plan is to assign officers to permanent shifts instead of rotating schedules. He hopes the plan will improve an officer's knowledge of his or her beat, and so improve response time.
"If you're waiting for an officer to show up, and of course everybody's time being as precious as it is nowadays with PTA meetings and everything else going on, they want to see a police officer as soon as possible," says Hunter.
Patrol officers say they are looking forward to having a set schedule and being able to do their jobs more efficiently.
The plan is expected to go into effect after Feb. 28. That's when the eleven officers will be promoted.
Hunter says it will cost between $10,000 to $12,000 to put the plan into action. The money will come out of the existing budget of $6.2 million.
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