By Kris Leonhardt

Editor

MARSHFIELD — At the Jan. 12 meeting of the Marshfield Fire & Police Commission, representatives approved a request for restructuring Marshfield Police Department officials.

Marshfield Police Chief Rick Gramza said that the restructuring would add an assistant police chief position, revise the duties of the police lieutenants, and remove the police sergeant job title.

With the new organizational structure, police officials would consist of one police chief, one assistant chief, and five lieutenants.

“I see many positives coming out of this,” said Gramza. “One is having a No. 2 individual within the organization that is running the organization in my absence.

“It’s taking individuals who are currently at a sergeant’s level and potentially increasing some of their duties. Those duties will not take away from their primary responsibility of supervising their personnel but will also alleviate some of those duties that are currently on some of their personnel and give those boots on the ground, so to speak, more time to address the concerns of traffic in the community, of complaints in the community, of follow-ups on investigations.”

The police department is also reconsidering its salary structure.

Gramza said, “In essence, if the salary survey comes back as I hope it will, it will create a little bit more of a buffer between those supervising individuals and those that they supervise, … in the future making it more appealing for individuals within the organization to aspire to be in that supervisory position.

“Right now we have individuals that don’t know if they want to pursue a supervisory position — although they are highly qualified — because they do not know if changing their work schedule is worth the little bit of bump in pay or if stepping out of the union is worth it.”