Inside Mayor Parker’s proposed police budget: New staff, equipment, and $50M for forensics

From her early days on the campaign trail to her first actions in office, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has made clear her commitment to public safety, reducing gun violence, and increasing the presence of police officers in Philadelphia neighborhoods.

On Thursday, she revealed how she hopes to fund those initiatives, unveiling a $6.29 billion budget proposal that would increase the police department’s budget for personnel by about $43 million. Parker’s proposal calls for an $877 million allocation to the department — the most of any city agency and about $220 million more than was allocated just eight years ago, at the start of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s administration.

The increased spending would go toward hiring additional emergency call dispatchers, office clerks, community outreach workers, and a new unit of victim advocates. The allocation would also upgrade the department’s technology, police car fleet, and investigative equipment — including a new system to track courtesy tows.

Parker also proposed a $50 million investment in the department’s forensics lab — a space that officials have long said is understaffed and overcrowded, and desperately needs new equipment.

“This is really exciting. The mayor has a vision for the city and we align with that,” Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Thursday at City Hall. “We’ve got needs, technology needs as she described, and other things, and this is just a great way for us to enhance our work.”

While Parker’s budget proposal increases the department’s spending for personnel, the force’s overall budget is about $1 million less than what it is projected to spend this fiscal year, which ends in June. But Finance Director Rob Dubow said that is “a little misleading” — the department moved $22.5 million to the city’s capital fund to accelerate upgrades to the forensics lab.

In addition, the force is expected to under-spend its staff budget this year and remains about 20% below its budgeted staffing levels. Dubow said that allows the department to use some of the unspent cash on new hiring and administrative staff.

That means the proposed increase to the police department is more modest than in prior years. Kenney increased the department’s budget by $55 million last year, and about $30 million the year before. But Dubow said the budget could increase if hiring accelerates, which is one of Parker and Bethel’s core priorities.

Speaking before City Council on Thursday, Parker underscored her support for the police department, at one point summoning the crowd to applaud an officer who patrolled a business corridor in Northwest Philly and “knew every store owner.”

”You all know that I fully support our police department,” she said. “I’ve been unapologetic about making it plain.”

Parker ran on a promise to add 300 more officers to the force, but the department has for years been severely understaffed and unable to fill hundreds of open positions. During her budget address, she said her administration would add 400 new officers to the force per year, but not fund new officer positions because those positions had been funded in previous budgets but went lacking for candidates. Instead, those staff increases would be achieved by accelerating recruitment and improving retention rates to fill the roles that are already open.

She also said that 100 of those officers would be tasked with community policing, an approach she described as officers “walking the beat, riding the bike, getting to know the people that they are sworn to protect and serve.”

Still, she has proposed adding 50 new office clerks and 19 people who work in community outreach and a new victims’ services unit. She also wants to add 15 emergency dispatchers to take 911 calls in a unit that has been plagued by staffing issues, retention, and low pay and morale in the past.

City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, a progressive Democrat who represents parts of West Philadelphia, said she was glad to see investments in hiring more 911 dispatchers — a need that became especially clear after authorities botched a response to a 911 call that preceded a mass shooting in Kingsessing last summer.

”When people call 911, someone has to pick up the phone,” she said, “and the response has to be quick and accurate.”

Upgrades in equipment and vehicles form the crux of Parker’s proposed budget, including about $2.2 million in upgrades to cellphones, video, and human resources software. She also suggested $225,000 for new software to track the cars that police tow and relocate, a long-criticized practice known as “courtesy towing” that has resulted in people losing their cars.

She proposed about $4.1 million for drones and investigative equipment, as well as about $5 million toward unmarked police cars and $10 million to fund 135 new radio patrol cars.

Parker has also proposed a $50 million investment in the forensics lab, a space that has long needed more personnel, space, and better equipment. The department is in the process of identifying a new location for a larger lab, but a timeline for when it would open remains unclear.

Mike Garvey, director of forensic science for the department, has said that the lab is about a third of the size that it should be, and that staffing shortages and old equipment have created a significant evidence backlog. Rape kits often take about 100 days to be analyzed, he said, and other items can take up to a year.

Expanding the city’s forensics capabilities would help solve crimes more quickly — which is also a part of Parker’s five-year plan.

According to the plan, the department hopes to see the homicide clearance rate reach 65% this year. Last year, the city saw about 59% of homicides get solved, a significant jump up from the 48% in 2022 and 42% the year before. An arrest was made in about 28% of non-fatal shootings last year, which was double the rate seen just two years ago, before the department’s Shooting Investigations Group was created.

And while the proposal is mainly focused on financial investments, Roosevelt Poplar, president of Philadelphia FOP Lodge #5, said the overall tenor of Parker’s address Thursday also invests in police morale.

“Rank and file police officers across the city are honored and humbled to know that Mayor Parker has our backs,” Poplar said in a statement. “Her unwavering support and investments in our police department has improved officer morale.”

Staff writer Sean Collins Walsh contributed to this article.