The cost of monitoring Occupy Denver is wearing on police, raising hackles on the City Council and causing some to question whether cops are stretched too thin by the protest to handle routine crime.

The head of a neighborhood association is concerned that police response times are being slowed, and City Council members have asked for an accounting of all city costs connected to the protest.

The Police Department this week asked for a $6 million budget increase, citing Occupy as a small but unspecified portion of the cost.

Last month, the safety manager’s office estimated total overtime costs for various city departments during five days of protest in October at approximately $365,000.

The Police Department has since changed officers’ schedules so that fewer work during the week and more over the weekend, when protests typically heat up, said Deputy Safety Manager Mel Thompson.

Still, Occupy protests are expected to cost about $200,000 in overtime through the remaining weeks of 2011, said Brendan Hanlon, acting city budget director. Occupy members are planning two demonstrations today, at noon at 201 W. Colfax Ave. and 6 p.m. in Civic Center park, to mark 60 days of the movement nationally.

Police response to some 911 calls is slowed when cops from throughout the city are shifted to handle protests, or any other event that requires a large law enforcement presence, said Detective John White, a police spokesman.

While crimes against individual citizens or crimes in progress are dealt with immediately, those that pose no significant threat can sometimes be delayed, White said. “Calls have to be prioritized . . . and when there is a large amount of police resources in one or several different areas,” delays can occur, he said.

When additional cops are needed, officers are brought in early, taken off other shifts and temporarily moved from other districts, White said.

Tony Lopez — police commander of District 6, which covers downtown Denver, including Civic Center, where police have had several battles with demonstrators — said the protest is further straining an already overtaxed department. “We are busting our hump to take care of business. It is not just us, it is the entire city.”

But Richard French, a volunteer who helps the Occupy movement with security at Civic Center, said the movement is nonviolent and the heavy police presence is unnecessary.

“We don’t need the same number of cops down here as the number of people occupying,” French said. “We have security. If a situation arises, we know how to step up.”

Chuck Sampson, president of the neighborhood group Uptown Alliance Association, voiced concern to three City Council members after listening to a police scanner as dispatch calls went unanswered for what he described as unusually long periods this past weekend.

“The DPD response to the Civic Center protests appears to have left District 6 critically understaffed at certain times on Saturday and Sunday,” Sampson said in e-mails to Jeanne Robb, Albus Brooks and Robin Kniech. “We need to be careful to not manage these protests at the expense of the safety of the residents of Capitol Hill, Uptown and downtown.”

About 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Sampson said, someone reported a man screaming that he had a gun at Clarkson Street and Park Avenue. The dispatcher said no officers were available and sent out an “all units be advised,” a message that tells officers to respond if they are able. A car was finally dispatched at 7:02 p.m., he said.

At a meeting of the City Council’s government and finance committee Wednesday, council members Robb and Charlie Brown said they are also concerned about damage to the park. Police cruisers are constantly parked on the grass, and protesters have been camping on grounds restored earlier this year as part of the Broadway Terrace Improvements included in a $9.5 million restoration project.

“I hope that the Parks Department doesn’t have to come back and ask for contingency funding,” Robb said.

Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com