City police department officials are confident that the existing number of officers will be able to handle the expected increase in calls for service in areas to be annexed next month.

It's Phase 2 of the annexation process — slated for the end of 2011 — that has them concerned, Deputy Chief Abram Anaya said. The city will absorb more than 10 times the number of new residents and nearly twice the amount of acreage as it will in Phase 1.

To that end, the department is asking the City Council to approve 48 new positions — including 27 more patrol officers, five more supervisors, nine more traffic-related officers, four more animal-control officers and three support staff — to be able to keep up with the expected workload increase, according to a memo Anaya wrote for city councilors, Mayor David Coss and City Manager Galen Buller.

"If we miss this opportunity to prepare for the future, annexation will be upon (us) and we will not be prepared and service to the community will suffer," Anaya wrote.

Councilors are scheduled to hear from city police and fire officials about annexation issues during a 5 p.m. special meeting today in the Council Chambers at City Hall.

Phase 1 of the annexation plan, scheduled to go into effect Nov. 10, will fill in many small areas, mainly along Interstate 25 on the city's southern border. It will bring more than 1,900 acres into the city and at least 1,313 more people, based on 2000 census figures.

The Police Department's main concern with Phase 1 is the 7.5 miles of Interstate 25 between N.M. 599 and Old Pecos Trail over which the city will assume new responsibility, Anaya said. City police will become the primary responding agency when accidents occur along that section of interstate, which is now the responsibility of the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office.

In 2008, 39 accidents occurred along that stretch of interstate — 24 with injuries and 15 without, according to Anaya's memo. "It's not overly significant," he said. Still, he noted that investigating interstate highway crashes is far more hazardous than accidents on city streets because of the speed of cars on the road. Thus, it requires more safety personnel, he said.

However, when Phase 2 of the annexation becomes a reality, the city will assume responsibility for 3,765 more acres and 13,650 more people, based on the 2000 census figures. Phase 3 will include about the same number of new residents as Phase 1, though it will incorporate more than 4,100 new acres into the city limits.

Anaya painstakingly researched the Sheriff's Office's 2008 calls for service in all the areas to be annexed and found that deputies responded to 28,521 incidents during that time, which took 35,373 hours, his memo states. Those are the numbers he used to calculate that the department will need 48 new positions. He said that was the "optimum" number of new personnel the city Police Department needs to avoid a drop-off in service in other areas.

In addition to the 27 new patrol officers, the department will need four more sergeants and one more lieutenant to supervise those officers, according to the memo. It will also need two new traffic officers, two more public-safety aides, three new DWI officers, two more K-9 officers, two records clerks, four animal-control officers and one clerk/typist to keep up with added workload, the memo says. Anaya did not know how much all 48 positions would cost, but said his office is working on the numbers.

Two years ago, city police asked for 45 new officers over three years to improve the service to existing residents. Anaya said that request "was not reflective of annexation." However, budgetary constraints have meant that the department only received four of those positions in the 2008-2009 budget, and will get no new officer positions in 2009-2010, Anaya said.

The department received a federal stimulus grant last month that will pay the salaries and benefits for eight more officers for three years, he said. "That's really going to help us out," Anaya said.

And while it might be logical to think that the high unemployment rate would bring in more law-enforcement applicants, Anaya said that isn't true. Still, he credited the department's recruiting division for stepping up its efforts, which have led to 13 new hires this year, he said. It takes about a year for a newly hired officer to be fully qualified to be a patrol officer.

But even if the city police department doesn't get all the new personnel it's asking for, the county Sheriff's Office is not going to simply walk away from the newly annexed areas.

The city and county are working on an interim agreement that says the county will maintain its "current level of law enforcement" in the annexed areas for up to three years following annexation, Santa Fe County Attorney Stephen Ross said. The intent of the agreement, he said, is "to provide some buffer so that the city does not ... have to take over all those responsibilities suddenly, so there is gradual transition."

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano said his agency will back up the city in those areas and handle calls when city officers are not available. He estimated that about 35 percent of his overall calls for service come from the areas to be annexed.

"I absolutely think they need more personnel (for those areas)," Solano said. "There's no doubt about that."

Reporter Julie Ann Grimm contributed to this story.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com.