SAUGUS – The upper ranks in the Police Department were restocked Thursday when three new officers were sworn in for duty.Sgt. Leonard Campanello was promoted to lieutenant and patrolmen David Gecoya and Steven MacDonald were each promoted to Sergeant.”They were good choices, they are great guys,” said Lt. Mike Annese.Annese said the promotions would help alleviate overtime for the Superior Officers as well as filling empty slots.While it beefs up the upper echelons of the department Annese said it does leave a few holes in the patrolmen roster.Town Manager Andrew Bisignani said he is trying to correct that and is in the process of hiring three new officers.”I wish I could hire 10 but we don’t have the budget for that,” he said.Annese said that would alleviate some of the problem with the patrolmen but not right away. Before the new hires can hit the streets they will have to attend the academy.”We’ll send them off to the academy immediately but it will be nine months before they’ll be on the streets,” Annese said. “At least we’re headed in the right direction.”The issue of a manpower shortage is nothing to new to the department but former Police Chief James MacKay warned the Board of Selectmen shortly before his retirement that the department simply isn’t large enough to handle the town.MacKay told the board that the department barely has enough men to cover incidents when what the town really needs is visibility. He said the town needs to have officers out in public patrolling and talking with residents on a regular basis but he feared it wasn’t going to happen any time soon.Bisignani said would like to add more officers to the department in the future but he admitted he doesn’t know when that will happen.Annese said ideally the department should hire three to four officers per year to keep its compliment up and replace outgoing officers as they retire.”Ideally that’s how you do it,” he said.