The Vicksburg Police Department, seeking to ease overworked patrols, will advertise to hire part-time officers to beef up the department’s manpower, Chief Tommy Moffett said Wednesday.

Moffett told the city’s Civil Service Commission he will submit a formal proposal for hiring certified officers from other area departments next week. The commission agreed to reconvene April 19 to review the recommendation.

The officers could come from active duty in other departments or could be officers who resigned from other departments but still have their certification, Moffett said. They would be paid on an hourly basis, as full-time officers are currently, and be subjected to the same polygraph and psychological tests and background checks.

&#8220It’s common throughout the state, especially at smaller departments, that an officer may work fulltime at one department and parttime at another, or parttime at two departments,” Moffett said, adding that parttime and reserve officers were &#8220very helpful” during his tenure with the Biloxi Police Department before he took over the top spot in Vicksburg in 2001. &#8220We’re talking about certified police officers, because you can’t work as a police officer unless you are certified by the state and are qualified.”

The department is currently at 75 officers, leaving 12 officer slots open, Moffett told chairman Joe Graham. Four officers recently graduated from the academy on March 16, Moffett said, and the department hired two other officers from Louisiana who are going through a three-week refresher course. Three recent resignations, however, have kept officers volunteering more of their time to keep shifts full.

&#8220At some point officers get tired working overtime, even if they do it voluntarily. Officers have to have more time off,” Moffett said. &#8220This is something to enhance peak times, weekends, holidays, festivals or events, times when we need more officers.”

The request for part-time officers came on the heels of two other upgrades to the department’s transportation approved by the Board of Mayor and Aldermen at its April 3 meeting. At that meeting, the board OK’d a $24,740 payment to Watson Quality Ford for a 2006 Crown Victoria, $43,575 to Applied Concepts of Florida for in-car radar systems and $90,507 to ICOP Digital, Inc. of Kansas for in-car surveillance cameras.

The cameras will go to replace older cameras and others that have been lost in wrecks, Moffett said.

&#8220Obviously it’s our goal that every car has a camera as well as radar,” Moffett said. &#8220Cameras are one of the most valuable tools that you can have in police work, especially as it relates to officer safety.”

In other business, the Civil Service Commission: