Mayor's budget proposal includes boost in funding for Louisville police recruitment

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — As the city invests in public safety, Louisville leaders are working to give first responders more resources.

Mayor Craig Greenberg's $1.1 billion budget includes funding to hire more officers for the Louisville Metro Police Department.

"We're not going to add 300 officers in the next two years, that's impossible," LMPD Chief Paul Humphrey said Tuesday. "So what we have talked about amongst our command staff is how do we make the best use of the officers we have here? How do we invest in them?"

Because of an increase in overtime spending within the department, LMPD needs more officers to fill the gaps. To do so, Greenberg said the city is investing in recruiting classes in this year's budget, as well as wage increases.

On Tuesday, the mayor said the city has proposed three new recruiting classes in the next year for the department.

"Our hope is to have as large as possible, up to the limit of those recruiting classes, within the coming year," Greenberg said. "LMPD has been working hard on recruiting, as the chief mentioned, through many different strategies that will help start making progress to fill those gaps that we know we have."

Greenberg also spoke about adding a StarChase program to crack down on high-speed police chases. Through the program, officers would be able to shoot a GPS tag from the front bumper of a police cruiser onto a suspect's car, allowing them to track the vehicle in real-time through an app.

"It gives us the ability, hopefully, to be able to track vehicles without getting into a dangerous pursuit," Humphrey said.

Another $400,000 of the proposed budget would expand LMPD's drone program, a resource officers use to find suspects by flying a drone in the air and locating them to keep officers safe.

"When you overlay all of this technology and all of this support, along with really great people who are on the ground doing the work, that is how we have had the successes that we've had," said Humphrey.

The mayor's budget proposal also includes roughly $22 million for overtime in the next budget — about $1 million more than last year.

The request is a small piece of the police department's overall budget and the city's billion dollar spending plan. It follows recent WDRB reporting on overtime trends within LMPD.

Louisville Fire can also expect updates if the budget goes through, with $5 million allocated to replace aging breathing gear for the department. These are packs firefighters wear when going into any hazardous situation.

"We're already going to be able to order new packs for the whole department, and that lifetime warranty is going to help keep that cost down over the years," said Donovan Sims, a spokesperson for Louisville Fire.

The budget must be approved by Louisville Metro Council before anything can officially pass. Meetings to discuss the budget are expected to start this week and it will be approved sometime in June.