Mayor Dave Cieslewicz announced Sunday his proposed 2007 executive budget will include $2 million devoted to increasing public safety.
George Twigg, spokesperson for the mayor, said the funding will go toward the addition of 10 new police officers to the Madison Police Department, the purchase of fully-equipped squad cars, staffing studies and community service programs aimed at promoting downtown safety.
Should the Common Council adopt the mayor's proposal into the budget this November, Twigg added, the increase in police force would occur as quickly as possible.
"The police department is feeling as the population grows, they need to keep pace with that," Twigg said.
Twigg also said even though the city has added police officers in the past few years, this would be the largest addition to the police force since 1995.
And with the recent spike in campus-area muggings and sexual assaults, Common Council President Austin King said the city should do everything it can to aid the police department with increased coverage. Though increasing police forces alone will not be the solution to downtown crimes, he added, it is important to prioritize the issue in the budget.
"We had a rough year, and that ought to be reflected in the budget," King said. "This will certainly help, but there is no silver bullet for crime; it takes a lot of different strategies."
Another aspect of the investment, Twigg noted, would be additional crime detectives, a crucial resource in the investigations of many of the off-campus assaults this year.
"We've seen the value of good detective work in some of the cases this summer," Twigg said. "Those resources are obviously very important."
Although the proposed funds would allow the MPD to hire 10 new officers, King explained it would be up to Chief of Police Noble Wray to distribute the new forces. But King said he thinks having officers on the street promotes public safety and is far more important than police "babysitting" underage drinkers in bars.
King said he has suggested including officer distribution guidelines in the budget, but the decision will most likely be left to experts.
"The mayor has a philosophy that he's not an expert in crime solving, and neither am I," he added. "So we let the police chief decide what to do with the resources. But I have made my feelings known to the police department."
King said if the budget is adopted in November, the MPD would then begin a recruiting class for new officers. The process to become a qualified officer takes many months, he noted, and the city usually gets more than 1,000 applicants for only 10 positions.
"It's a hyper-competitive job, but we get high quality officers," he said.
The mayor's budget, including the public safety proposal, will be formally introduced to the Common Council Tuesday. It will then go through the Board of Estimates in October, and finally, the Common Council will vote to adopt the budget in mid-November.
