According to data from the Santa Cruz Consolidated Emergency Communications Center, Santa Cruz police received 85,774 calls for service in 2009, a nine percent increase over 2008 and a 26 percent increase in calls from 2006.
The police department's 87 sworn officers responded to an average of 235 calls each day in 2009.
"This significant increase in call volume is forcing us to expend our overtime budget to simply meet demand," Police Chief Howard Skerry said in a statement.
"Unfortunately, there are no indications that this workload will decrease," Skerry said.
