Source: Chicago Police Department.

The Chicago Police Department (CPD) last week released a key document related to its yearlong Workforce Allocation Study, which it has alternately called WFA and WAS.

The document is an executive summary of a forthcoming final WAS report, authored by CPD's contractor, Matrix Consulting Group.

Among the executive summary's recommendations:

■ CPD should move about 600 badged (or "sworn") employees from administrative positions to the street. This would require CPD to hire hundreds of civilians to fill those positions.

■ The department should add over 50 patrol sergeants, to "lower supervisory spans of control"—meaning that each patrol supervisor would end up with fewer cops to oversee.

■ In the area of patrol, CPD should split up about a dozen of its busiest geographical entities—which it call "sectors", each of which comprises a number of beats—to make them smaller and more easily managed.

Matrix called CPD's current staffing challenges “real and uneven,” saying that the challenges vary widely across the city.

The growing costs associated with an understaffed CPD—such as costs of police overtime pay—have greatly contributed to the city's ongoing financial difficulties.

"We anticipate the public release of the Workforce Allocation Study's Final Report in the coming weeks," CPD wrote on its Web site. The site also shows that the final report could come as late as April.

Document: Executive Summary of the Workforce Allocation Study's Final Report