Columbus Mayor Andy Ginther says the city will hire an additional thirty police officers on top of the seventy hires scheduled this year.
Ginther says this will bring the number of recruits funded in the budget to one hundred.
Ginther say an additional 2 million dollars will be spent on the extra officers and other neighborhood safety initiatives. City Council will amend Ginther's original budget proposal to add 500 thousand dollars towards those costs, with the rest coming from 2017 carryover funds. The head of the police union has said the city needs a minimum of 200 new officers. Police Chief Kim Jacobs said last year more funding and officers are needed, and she's pleased with Ginther's Wednesday announcement. The activist group called the People’s Justice Project says adding more officers will not solve the city's problems with homicides, drugs, and police abuse of citizen civil rights.