“The board of directors of Chicago Lodge 7 voted to stage a march that will take place on Sept. 15, 2010 at [10 a.m.] at Chicago police headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave. All members are encouraged to attend this march.”

Noting that two officers were shot while attempting to serve a warrant Tuesday night in Englewood, FOP president Mark Donohue said the protest is an attempt “to draw more attention to the manning issues in the department and what's not being done to rectify it. It's a grave concern of ours, in light of another incident.

“We want our officers to be able to pro-actively do police work, and they can't do that now,'' he continued. “We want them to give us the tools they need to do our job. That will take greater manpower, particularly at the district law enforcement level, and greater support from the hierarchy of the Police Department.''

A two-year hiring slowdown has left the Chicago Police Department more than 2,311 officers-a-day short of its authorized strength counting vacancies, medical leave and limited duty.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that a new class of 120 recruits will start six months of training today, honoring Mayor Daley's modest hiring promise, but depleting a 2006 hiring list.

That means City Hall has reached a crossroad that will slow subsequent efforts to ease the manpower shortage.

The financially strapped city must decide whether to spend millions on the first police entrance exam in four years — and wait the months it will take to award a testing contract, develop, administer and grade the exam — take the testing process in-house or scrap the test altogether in favor of an application-only process.

The Sun-Times reported earlier this year that the police department was considering ditching the exam to bolster minority hiring, save test preparation costs and avert costly legal battles that have dogged the exam process for decades.

If the process is opened to everyone who applies and meets the minimum education and residency requirements, Chicago would stand virtually alone among major cities.

Late last month, the Police Department had 940 vacancies, 136 of those openings for sergeants.

There are also 641 officers a day on desk duty and 730 officers on medical rolls — thanks, in part, to a policy that allows officers to take as many as 365 sick days every two years.

Last fall, the city used federal economic stimulus funds to add 86 officers, 30 of them for the CTA. In the spring, another 60 officers entered the police academy. They were assigned to O'Hare Airport, where 36 percent of the 171 police positions had been vacant.

In July, Daley vowed to hire 100 more police officers after a stunning outbreak of violence that saw three police officers gunned down in two months.

The new class of 120 recruits more than honors that promise. It includes eight officers recently authorized by TSA funding.

Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd), who is considering a race for mayor against Daley, has demanded that the city hire 1,000 additional officers, which would add $70 million to the city's record $654.7 million budget shortfall.

The last time the FOP arranged a protest march, the turnout was tremendous. It happened on April 2, 2009, after Daley pulled an offer to raise the salaries of police officers by 16.1 percent over five years.

The decision infuriated thousands of officers, who circled City Hall chanting, “Daley sucks.”

The raucous protest was timed to embarrass Daley during the International Olympic Committee's final site visit to Chicago.

An arbitrator subsequently awarded rank-and-file police officers a 10 percent pay raise over five years, the smallest five-year increase in nearly 30 years.