Detroit Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings announced her plans Monday afternoon to restructure the city's police department.

The police chief said with the decline in Detroit's population over the past 40 years, there was no longer a need for 12 police precincts.

Bully-Cummings said that the department would be reduced to six precincts with the second, fifth, seventh, eighth, 10th and 13th precincts slated for closure. Some of the old precinct buildings will remain in use, while others will be shut down entirely, Local 4 reported.

Former Detroit Police Chief Ike McKinnon said he tried this practice a few years ago, but met fierce community opposition, Local 4 reported. He said the changes will not hurt response time.

"Just because a person lives a certain distance from a precinct doesn't mean that the response is going to be different," said McKinnon. "In reality, officers who are on patrol are given a sector. They are given a certain area they are patrolling all of the time."

Bully-Cummings said that a total of 150 officers would be laid off under the restructuring plan. She said that she was faced with the task of coming up with a plan that would avoid more than 600 layoffs required to meet the budget passed by City Council.

Bully-Cummings said she worked with a department restructuring committee to develop a strategy that called for consolidating departments and reducing precincts in order to reduce the number of layoffs.

She added that the restructuring plan reassigns 102 more officers to street duty and decreases the number of officers with desk assignments.

Residents are concerned about their safety with cuts within the police department, Local 4 reported. "This area around here is really high in crime," said resident Harry Bell about his neighborhood.

Bell said there are teenagers who are out past curfew who break car windows and steal cars.

"You can't get the police to respond," said Bell.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Bully-Cummings met with community leaders, consultants and chiefs from other cities to come up with a plan quickly to cut $54 million from the police department's budget. The city is trying to avoid going into receivership as it faces a projected budget deficit of more than $300 million, the station reported.

Kilpatrick said that he would now allow officers -- wearing their uniform and equipment -- to work part-time while off duty as long as it's in the city of Detroit.

In another change to policy, Kilpatrick said that vendors would now pay to staff police officers for sporting events.

The department changes are expected to take effect in about one month, the station reported.