Saturday, July 16, 2011
YOUNGSTOWN
If an additional police levy is approved by Boardman voters Aug. 2, a “Street-Crime SURGE Initiative” will begin, the township’s police chief said.
“We’ll have additional patrolmen on turns and in our narcotics unit, and we’ll have a Street Crimes unit that will go out and hunt. It’s aggressive police work that keeps the thugs uncomfortable,” Chief Jack Nichols said Wednesday in an interview with The Vindicator editorial board.
The 3.85-mill, five-year additional police levy would generate about $3.8 million annually and cost the owner of a home valued at $100,000 about $117 annually. The police budget is $7.1 million this year.
Officers in the street-crime unit would not be required to answer dispatch calls. Instead they’d patrol the township and look for crimes in progress, Nichols said.
Township trustees said that they want to hire 10 additional police officers over the next two years, in addition to one diversion specialist, one advocate, one crime analyst, one secretary, two records clerks and two dispatchers. The hirings are pending voter approval of the levy.
A five-year budget forecast from the police department that accounts for employee salary and benefits and the yearly increases in pay puts the average cost of those additions per year at about $1.4 million.
Township trustees have made no secret that although the entire $3.8 million generated annually by the police levy would go to the police, the amount going to the department from the general fund would be reduced by about $2.4 million.
The police budget would increase from $7.1 million to $8.5 million, trustees said.
In the early 1970s, Boardman voters approved a police district that included a continuing levy that now generates about $1.4 million annually. Voters in 2008 also approved a safety levy for both police and fire services. The amount allocated to the police department from that safety levy would be about $1.2 million in 2012, according to township budget projections.