More than two years after introducing its new policing model, the Columbia Police Department is still working on technology and scheduling changes to put the model into practice.

CPD Chief Ken Burton was hired in 2009 and began working on a new geographic policing model shortly afterward. CPD spokeswoman Jill Wieneke said the department is still in the process of tweaking the model to make it work.

“The idea behind it is that the city is split into eight beats with each officer assigned to a particular beat, and it would be abnormal for an officer to leave that area,” Wieneke said. “The idea is that the officer gets accustomed to the beat, learns the streets, gets to know the residents and business owners and is aware of what’s going on in their mini-town within the city.”

According to the city budget from the 2010 fiscal year, the goal of the new model is to rebuild relationships between police officers and the residents of their areas.

“Where once two lieutenants were in charge of time-of-day responsibilities, now four lieutenants will be over four smaller geographic sectors,” the budget stated. “Each is the de facto police chief for the geographic area.”

Wieneke said the biggest roadblock for implementing the model has been dealing with absences.

“The problem comes in when we’re not fully staffed,” she said. “If we get a priority call that can’t be held or a call that requires more than one officer, someone on another beat has to leave.”

The department has done significant hiring in the past six months and Burton hopes to fully implement the model by next spring, Wieneke said.

“The officers will have enhanced beat accountability, which is the goal,” she said. “Of course, this hinges on people leaving. We had a lot of police officers hired in the early ’90s, so we have over 20 people that could retire in the next 12 months. It will depend on who leaves and who doesn’t leave.”

Officers currently work 12-hour shifts, but Wieneke said the department is exploring different scheduling ideas.

“We’ve been looking at an eight-hour shift, a 10-hour shift and even a hybrid where some officers work eight hours and some work 10,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out the best way to use our resources. We’re very realistic, and we know we’re not increasing the size of the police force anytime soon, so we’re trying to figure out the best model for the force size we have.”

Wieneke said the department is also looking into technology that will make it easier to track where officers are.

“In my mind, the GPS in my phone knows where I am at all times,” Wieneke said. “We have that capability in the laptops in the patrol cars. It’s something they’ve been working on as a part of geographic policing.”

As it stands right now, Wieneke said the best evidence for an officer’s whereabouts is the last place he or she checked in.

“It’s a huge safety issue,” she said. “If something were to happen that they weren’t expecting and it came on rapidly, it’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”