In Mayor Jeff Longwell’s weekly briefing says there won’t be as many cuts as initially proposed. He says continuing to enhance Wichita’s quality of life is top priority and that includes adding more personnel to the police department.
Wichita Police Department Deputy Chief Troy Livingston says he’s grateful the department will be getting to add more people to its staff. He said, “our call load has gone up within the last few years. It gives us the opportunity to do more community policing activities. Right now, police officers are going from call to call.”
In total, WPD will be adding 32 new positions, that includes civilian positions like crime analysts. He said, “we are looking at adding 21 new commissioned positions. Two of those will be sergeants, we need those in our traffic unit. Six will be detectives and 13 will be police officers.”
The proposed budget will also focus on something a lot of people complain about, neighborhood streets.
(Read more: KAKE – News)