London police have made a "budget-busting request" to hire more new officers and civilian staff next year.
Speaking to the Police Services Board Thursday, Chief John Pare says public safety and security requires another $1.8 million from taxpayers.
In September police presented a surprisingly low draft budget request, just a 1.5 per cent increase over 2015, but that didn't include any additional officers or civilian staff.
Now, for the first time since 2012, London police want to add 11 officers and two civilian positions - at a cost of $1.8 million above September's $96.3 million request.
The new positions - along with other revisions - would boost the year-over-year increase to 2.5 percent and bring the budget in at $97.2 million.
Pare says, "The only additional positions that have come [were] in 2012. We have continued to push off and push off, and now we are no longer in a position to do that."
The request was approved by the police board, but Mayor Matt Brown and Councillor Stephen Turner voted against six of the 13 positions, believing police ranks should increase at a rate closer to the city's population and tax assessment growth.
Brown says, "I wanted to make my position clear. There will be incremental increases to this budget line, to budget lines from right across this city as we grow as a community, but we need to do that in a sustainable way."
In addition, city hall's four-year budget must also brace for additional hiring requests in 2017, 2018 and 2019, but Pare won't say how many more officers that will be.
Also not included in those figures is a possible market value 'top up' for unionized officers in 2019 which will raise their pay to the average of the province's 10 largest municipal forces.
Thursday's request would see the police budget exceed $100 million by 2018.
Council will debate the request during budget deliberations early in 2016.
