Mayor cries poor
Police Chief Paul Williams recently told KOLR 10 that staffing was the biggest issue to face the department. “Our biggest challenge right now is people. It’s retaining the people we have and bringing new people in. If you don’t have the people you can’t do the job,” Williams said.
In Missouri, after weeks of public discussions over a request to add ten officers to the Springfield Police Department, the union that represents the department announced it will launch a “campaign initiative.”
“We need you, your families and your friends to begin spreading the word in a very vocal manner,” the Springfield Police Officers Association wrote in a Facebook post Saturday. In a Friday interview with KOLR 10 about the discussion that’s played out in recent city council meetings over adding officers, Springfield Mayor Bob Stephens said the city cannot meet the request without taking money from another part of the just-implemented budget. “I have got to tell the folks of Springfield, there is no fat in our budget,” the mayor said. “There just isn’t a pot of gold forgotten somewhere in an account that we can pull out to hire 10, 15 or 20 more people … If you hire somebody you’re going to be taking that money away from somewhere else.”
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