Police chief asks committee to add two officers, seeks $156,000 for vehicles and equipment

Police Chief Dustin Rogers told the University Heights Finance Committee on Dec. 3 that the police department is proposing to increase sworn staffing from 30 to 32 officers and is seeking funding to replace and outfit patrol vehicles and update technology.

Rogers presented a five‑year capital projection and said the 2025 request was revised to two new cruisers — not three — because the department reallocated a recently purchased Ford Escape and moved an investigative bureau SUV into uniform patrol after two uniform vehicles were totaled earlier in the year. He gave an all‑in estimate of about $156,000 to purchase and outfit two new cruisers and to outfit one vehicle already in the fleet.

Rogers described recurring IT and maintenance needs, including desktop replacements (about $15,600) and station maintenance (roughly $20,000–$25,000). He also identified planned CCTV enhancements mounted on traffic signal poles in business districts and recurring license‑plate reader (LPR) costs that he said run about $60,000 annually.

On staffing, Rogers presented a memo summarizing multiple staffing models used in law enforcement planning and said the department’s data support a request to move to 32 sworn officers. He cited trends including a rise in calls involving firearms — noting a roughly 112% increase comparing 2020–2023 with 2015–2017 — and that from 2020 through 2023 twenty‑one University Heights officers sustained injuries in the field during use‑of‑force encounters.

Councilmembers pressed for more granular data. Councilmember Winn Weizer asked for raw counts rather than percentages (for example, the number of firearm encounters that were recovered guns versus officer‑contact firearm incidents, and the baseline numbers behind percentages). Councilmember John Rach questioned whether including John Carroll University students in the city population was appropriate for per‑capita staffing formulas; Chief Rogers said UHPD routinely handles investigations, arrests and custodial responsibilities for incidents that occur on John Carroll property and that the university relies on UHPD for those functions despite having a campus department.

Rogers and councilmembers also discussed whether hiring additional officers would reduce overtime. Rogers cited a prior finance analysis indicating overtime can be more costly than hiring, and he said some officers take overtime as comp time rather than cashing it out. Mrs. Weiss noted overtime year‑to‑date was about $85,000 and asked the chief to provide the requested raw data and clearance/solvability rates to inform the decision.

The committee did not vote on the staffing request. Mrs. Weiss said budget adjustments and any additional questions would be addressed at a follow‑up Finance Committee meeting scheduled for Dec. 11, when the finance director and department heads will reconvene with updated figures.