TOLEDO, OH (WTOL) – One city councilman called for more police officers at the 2012 Budget Committee hearing.
Councilman D. Michael Collins feels that the police department's $73 million budget needs to be reconstructed, and more officers need to be on the streets in order to improve response times.
There are currently 545 officers on the streets of Toledo, and another 40 will be graduating from the police academy soon.
Collins says he supports Chief Derrick Diggs' plan for a real-time camera center, which will cost $800,000, but he wonders who will man them.
"We need more officers. The fact of the matter is we have far fewer officers in the city of Toledo than we have in the state of Ohio and United States for comparable cities." said Collins.
Chief Diggs says that he understands the financial circumstances of the city, and he told the council's public safety committee that it's a challenging budget, but the Bell administration makes the funding decisions.
Toledo Fire Chief Luis Santiago is presenting a $59 million dollar 2012 budget to the committee, which is down $4 million dollars from last year due to a reduction in the pension pick-up plan.
Budget hearings for all city departments will continue until the final 2012 city budget approval deadline of March 31st.
Copyright 2012 WTOL. All rights reserved.
All content © Copyright 2000 - 2012 WorldNow and Toledo News Now, a Raycom Media Station. 
