Officials say the proposal – a roughly 20% increase in the Miami police force over current levels – will cost taxpayers $161 million over the next five years and about $40 million annually after that.
The City of Miami is poised to approve the addition of 300 police officers to its existing force – a staffing increase of nearly 20 percent – costing Miami taxpayers more than $161 million in start-up costs and police salaries and benefits over the next five years.
The new officers would be phased in over five years, bringing the city’s total police ranks to about 1,700. When fully onboard, the new officers are expected to cost the city roughly $40 million per year in additional salaries, benefits and expenses.
The measure is part of the city’s proposed $1.8 billion operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which city commissioners on Thursday will consider for approval. (The commission also will consider a proposed $2 billion budget for capital projects).
Police officials say the new officers are needed in anticipation of a growing city population.
“Our officers are doing well, but I’m looking at the city and how we’re growing,” City of Miami Police Chief Manny Morales told commissioners in June when the staffing proposal was first made. “It’s not that there is a need for now, but there is a need to prepare for what Miami is to become.”
Morales said that, according to department projections, Miami will see an increase of about 7,000 dwelling units over the next few years.
(City officials, including Morales, declined to answer the Spotlight’s questions about the proposed police staffing increases).
District 3 Commissioner Joe Carollo, the proposal’s sponsor at the June meeting, argued that the city’s police force is spread thin by tourists and by the commuters that enter the city for work each day.
In July, the City of Miami announced violent crime was down throughout the city, with a 20% decrease in homicides, 17% decrease in robberies, 19% decrease in aggravated assaults and 37% decrease in auto thefts in comparison to the first half of 2024.
In a recent interview, Miami District 2 Commissioner Damian Pardo told the Spotlight that while crimes may be down, the number of complaints he receives from residents is not.
“It’s very hard to quantify feeling safe,” Pardo said.
Those complaints may be less serious ones — boats blasting music as they cruise the waterfronts, or residents and visitors afraid to walk within the city’s urban core – but they illustrate the need for more officers on foot and within the department’s marine patrol, Pardo said.
“It’s really not about the city saying, hey, this is the priority,” he said. “It’s about the residents and it’s about what the residents are telling us. What the residents are telling us is we want to feel safe in these urban core areas.”
Pardo added that District 2’s allotment of the new officers, if approved, will likely be deployed in Brickell, Downtown, and Edgewater, and with the marine patrol division. Few if any will make their way to the streets of Coconut Grove, which enjoys one of the city’s lowest crime rates.
Miami has just under three police officers per thousand residents. With the addition of 300 full-time police, that would jump to about 3.8 officers, given current population levels.
Nationwide, there are about 2.4 full-time law enforcement officers per thousand inhabitants. The average is higher in larger cities.
In Chicago, there are about 4 officers per thousand residents while New York City comes in at 3.8. Tampa has 2.66 officers per thousand residents.
The new officers won’t come cheap. Each new hire comes with an upfront price tag of about $216,000: a one-time equipment cost of $55,000 for a car; $25,000 for other equipment; $66,000 in first-year salary; and a $69,000 benefits package — $47,302 of which goes into a retirement fund.
The officers will be hired 100 at a time over three to five years, City of Miami Budget Director Marie Gouin explained at the city’s first budget hearing on Sept. 13. A $3 million federal grant will help offset the outlay for the first round of hirings, Gouin added.
After hiring and training, new officers would begin hitting the streets in about 13 months.
Not everyone is convinced that boosting the city’s police ranks is necessary, especially when other budget priorities may be more pressing.
“Why do we need the police? Because we are putting people in positions of desperation. We are not supporting our communities,” Coconut Grove resident Katrina Morris said during the meeting’s public comment period.
Miami resident Raissa Fernandez echoes that sentiment: “When you see an inequality of investments made to community and only investments into safety, it’s a question mark of what we represent as a city.”
The police department routinely commands the greatest share of the city’s budget. Police will spend about $416 million — 22.6% of the total city expenses – if the proposed budget is approved. Last year police spending accounted for 21.2% of the total.
The commissioners will vote to finalize the budget on Thursday, Sept. 25, putting this and other funding into action.
If the crime stats were increasing, the police would point at them and say, “We need more officers.”
Here the stats show crime going down, yet they still want more officers.