OXFORD – A reserve police officer is temporarily replacing a full-time town police officer who suffered a severe hand injury in an off-duty accident, Michael Chammings, Oxford town manager, said Wednesday.
Chammings said Sgt. Theron Bickford severely injured his hand in an accident recently while he was off duty.
Bickford has been off the job for approximately a week and a half.
Chammings said he did not know when he would be able to return to work.
“I haven’t officially talked to anyone on that so I just don’t know,” he said. “We have a fill-in for him. Rest assured that there is full coverage. We wish him well and hope he is back soon.”
The Oxford Police Department has declined to comment. Oxford normally has five full-time police officers.
Reserve officers are hired by the town manager and their appointments are confirmed by the Board of Selectmen.
They are trained and certified by the state and some work in civilian jobs.
Chammings said the reserve officer’s pay is currently being drawn from the Police Department’s budget, although the town maintains a compensated-absences fund in case a town employee has an extended absence for medical reasons.
Chammings said the fund currently is budgeted at $8,000.
The town’s transfer station is down one employee, who is currently recuperating from eye surgery.
The transfer station’s budget is covering that employee’s absence.
“Right now the funds are being drawn from individual accounts. If they go into negative numbers we start replenishing with (compensated absences) monies,” he said.
The position at the transfer station is not as costly an absence as a full-time police officer.
The state Department of Environmental Protection requires the town to have two employees at its transfer station during busy periods, which Chammings said amounts to one or two days per week.
“It doesn’t take a lot of funds to cover that,” he said.
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