The Dartmouth Police Department has been cleared to change its command structure.

At the June 17 Select Board meeting, the board voted 4-1 to approve Police Chief Brian Levesque’s proposal to have a chief and two deputy chiefs lead the department.

This is a change from the existing command structure, which includes a police chief, deputy chief, and a police captain.

The police chief and deputy chief positions are appointed, while the captain's position is a civil service position.

The current captain, Mark Zielinski, is set to retire at the end of the month, but the department has been unable to attract more than one applicant to replace him.

According to Levesque, this is due to the inefficiency of the state’s civil service system. The civil service process rendered only one candidate to replace Zielinski.

“To me, one candidate is not a choice at all quite honestly,” Levesque said at a June 3 meeting discussing the change.

Levesque said the change will have no impact on the department’s budget, and will not require any additional funding to change.