Salt Lake City Police Chief Rick Dinse told the City Council on Tuesday that changing demographics in Utah's capital mean more police officers will be needed in the near future.
Dinse, arguing in favor of Mayor Rocky Anderson's proposed $1.4 million property tax increase to fund 15 more police officers, said the city needs more cops to meet the changing face of Salt Lake City.
Those changing demographics include greater immigration, an increase in the number of poorer residents and a general increase in daytime population associated with projected population growth in Salt Lake County, Dinse and his administration said.
"Since we are seeing a change in our city, the ultimate end is we will be seeing increases in crime," Dinse told the council.
"We have people coming into our city that are new," he said after the meeting, adding that the rising need for officers isn't all about immigration, "but we have people that are of the lower socio-economic status, and poverty breeds more crime. To address it to one part of the population, I don't want to do that, but we have to be ready for what we see."
The chief also noted Salt Lake City has more residents per capita that are on probation and parole than other Utah cities.
Still, after the police briefing, it seemed unlikely the City Council will grant Anderson's tax increase for more officers.
Council member Dave Buhler said he definitely would vote against an increase, with councilmen Van Turner and Carlton Christensen saying they expect to vote against it as well.
Other council members were undecided, but all stated they were reluctant to raise taxes and might look to cut other areas of the city budget to find cash for more police.
That said, council chairman Dale Lambert, who has often stressed the need for more officers, said it didn't seem likely the city could afford more officers without a tax increase.
"We are being asked to fund 15 new officers," he said. "I don't think we can get all the way there in some other way."
Across the board, council members are perplexed about the police department's large number of vacancies. Dinse said the department has maintained 10 or more vacancies at all times during his five-year tenure.
The problem is the police department has to wait until an officer leaves before hiring a new officer for that position. That officer then has to go through months of training before being ready for the street. In the time it takes to train that new officer, others leave, and that maintains the cycle of vacancy.
Also, the department often waits a while to provide training so it can have larger training classes — a strategy that reduces training costs, as opposed to having smaller training classes more frequently.
Council members argue that if the police department was more aggressive in filling vacancies, the number of new officers needed could be reduced. In order to accomplish a more aggressive plan, the council would have to give the department the ability to over-hire, which would also cost more money.
"It just seems a little odd to have open positions that you haven't filled and then be asking for new positions. It just seems like an odd way to do things," Buhler said.
However the council tries to increase officers, it will take more money, Lambert noted.
The police department and Anderson, who is out of town, say the city needs 90 more officers by 2010. City leaders actually have decreased the number of sworn officers in Salt Lake City since 1998 from 414 to 410.
E-mail: bsnyder@desnews.com