Lack of funds for new police disturbs council

No funding for new police officers is included in Mayor Rocky Anderson's proposed budget for fiscal year 2007-08, and that has members of the Salt Lake City Council concerned.

Anderson's budget, introduced last week and discussed by the council at a work session Tuesday, proposes more than $54 million in ongoing funding for the police department, representing about 27.5 percent of the city's general-fund budget.

The city in recent years has added about 10 full-time employees per year to the police department, a rate that Police Chief Chris Burbank says is "adequate" to keep up with the city's growth.

"I'd like to see us take a look at adding police officers," Councilman Eric Jergensen said. "I think the mayor is stepping back from a good trend of adding police officers."

"It seems like we should be doing it, because we've always done it in the past," Councilman Van Turner added.

Burbank said he'd like to boost the number of officers in the department's gang-response unit. Salt Lake City has just four detectives operating in that capacity, but they boast a 100 percent crime-solving rate this year for gang-involved shootings or other incidents, he said.

Anderson's proposed budget calls for $105,000 of ongoing funding to help Salt Lake City police solve cold cases. The funding would allow the department to employ new technology that analyzes DNA more efficiently, Burbank said.

"It will provide us an opportunity to solve some of those cases," he said.

For the most part, members of the City Council voiced few concerns with the mayor's budget and even praised certain elements, such as plans for green-waste containers to be available to residents on a voluntary basis, as well as the option for residents to downsize from a 90-gallon garbage can to the 60- and 30-gallon versions.

If approved in the budget, green-waste cans will be made available to residents on a voluntary basis at a cost of $3.50 per month ($42 per year). The containers will be picked up along with regular garbage service between March 1 and Nov. 30.

City officials expect about 10 percent of residential homes to subscribe to the green-waste program if it's approved this budget season and available in March 2008. Those subscriptions would generate an estimated $43,000 in annual revenue, according to a staff report.

Start-up costs for the program are estimated at $630,000. City staff members are proposing to add two garbage trucks to the city's fleet at an estimated cost of $200,000 apiece, as well as $200,000 for the 90-gallon green-waste containers. Wages for 1.9 seasonal employees also have been factored into the start-up costs.