DeKALB – DeKalb police are looking to hire more officers in the coming months as their current force racks up more overtime because they are shorthanded.

Police Chief Gene Lowery said the department has the budget to hire five more officers. One of those officers is going through academy training. But he added, he will ask the DeKalb City Council “to address ... additional needs for the police department above and beyond what our authorized strength is.”

Lowery declined to say anything further on the topic, but he’s already given the City Council an idea of their workload. Lowery said between Aug. 23 and Sept. 30, the department handled 4,748 incidents, a 9.8 percent increase from the same period in 2011.