It's going to be an uphill battle when London police bring their 2016 budget to city council.
Police are looking to hire 13 new staff members, 11 police officers and two civilian employees, increasing next year's police budget by a whopping $1.8-million.
The London Police Services Board approved the move Thursday in two separate motions. One for $900,000 to come from the property taxes, while the other for $911,212 to come from assessment growth.
The addition brings the 2016 budget to $97.2-million, a jump of 2.5% compared to the 2015 budget.
"The resources that we have put forward in the 2016 budget are required. Some of these positions we have had no increases since 1991," says Police Chief John Pare. "There have been a number of steps that we have taken to try to reduce the impact and we are just at that point now where there's not much further room for us to do anything other than grow."
Growing the police service will be met with some stiff opposition from city council. Mayor Matt Brown and Councillor Stephen Turner, who both sit on the Police Services Board, voted against the increase.
"We have made great progress over the past couple of budget cycles. We have seen the police services budget handled in a much different way and with much lower increase than we have seen historically," says Brown. "I'd like to continue in that direction. To make sure we are seeing increases from time to time in an incremental way that are sustainable which is why I wasn't able to support the motion that was before us."
The new hires would staff a number of different divisions including foot patrol, investigation services, training, communications, and court prisoner security.