TIFTON — The Tifton city council is looking into ways to better accommodate their on-call officers over the winter.

At the request of police chief Steve Hyman, council members debated a temporary compensation plan for officers called in for service during their personal time at their Dec. 4 workshop meeting.

Hyman explained that due to a number of factors, including unforeseen illness and officers leaving for extended leave, the city police department was finding it difficult to have the proper number of staff on duty at all times, and had needed to put their patrol division on call to do so.

Concerned that their personal time would be encroached upon, as being on-call would require them to be ready to report for duty within thirty minutes of being called, he requested that this compensation plan be implemented.

The program would provide all officers one hour of pay for each day on call from Sunday to Thursday and two hours of pay for Friday and Saturday. Hyman estimated that on average, officers would spend about three to four days per month on call.

Mayor Julie Smith stated that the program would not put the city over budget or affect their current budget.

Believing it would be entirely possible and worthwhile to make it a permanent installation, vice mayor Jack Folk asked why it was only being considered as a temporary plan. City manager Emily Beeman explained that the plan itself was more-so to get the city police department through to January, at which point they could examine the plan in more detail and expand upon it more thoroughly to better accommodate all of the city’s public safety departments.

City council members agreed to make a decision on the matter at their next meeting.