{"id":38427,"date":"2026-08-20T14:43:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=38427"},"modified":"2026-08-20T14:43:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T18:43:50","slug":"decatur-pd-to-add-an-officer-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/20\/decatur-pd-to-add-an-officer-next-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur PD to add an officer next year"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The City of Decatur will be increasing its police department manpower next year, adding a 21st officer to the ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also, the sergeant numbers will double, from 2 to 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The expense of an additional officer plus two officers getting promotions is in the city&#8217;s 2027 budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A budget of $14,690,530 is being proposed to the state; it represents just a .76% increase over the current budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The department currently has 20 officers, plus Chief Kevin Gerber and Deputy Chief Derek Loshe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The sergeants are Trent Busse and Nathan Hunter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Chief Gerber explained that the department has two day squads and two night squads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThey work 12-hour shifts, providing 24\/7 coverage,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen one day squad is working, the alternate day squad has their days off. The same method for the night squad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thus, having four sergeants will provide one for each of the four squads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gerber is expected to get permission from the city&#8217;s board of works and safety at its next meeting to begin the hiring process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The City of Decatur will be increasing its police department manpower next year, adding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":29291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,21],"class_list":["post-38427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Decatur-PD-front.jpg?fit=2004%2C877&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38428,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38427\/revisions\/38428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}