SAN ANTONIO — The City of San Antonio wants to use grant funding to hire 50 more police officers.
They applied for a $6,250,000 federal grant through the Department of Justice.
On Thursday, San Antonio City Council approved accepting the grant if the city is awarded the money.
"Once we get the grand plan communicated to the council and begin hiring," said Maria Villagomez, deputy city manager for the City of San Antonio. "Right now the trial budget anticipates that we add 65 officers, so if we get this grant, it'll help us offset some of that cost."
Hiring more officers is a part of the city's five-year plan to add 360 officers to the San Antonio Police Department.
“At the basic level, this is going to allow us to enhance last year the budget process we were talking about trying to achieve a 40% time on call for patrol officers and a 60% time off call, which allows for a more proactive police force from the from the patrol perspective," said Robert Blanton, assistant police chief for the San Antonio Police Department.
The 50 officers, once hired, would be a part of the San Antonio Police Department's Patrol Division.
"This will create more capacity within the patrol division for officers to do other things other than respond to calls, assists, calls, proactive work, community engagement, those kind of things," Blanton said.
The trial budget still needs to go through city council approval, which will happen in August. The city won't know if they get the grant until September.
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