SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Spokane Valley City Council is expected to discuss hiring new police officers during their Tuesday night council meeting.
Spokane Valley Police Department currently partners with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office to patrol the city. Right now there are 91 people who work fully as Spokane Valley police officers.
Back at the end of 2022, the department hired a consulting group to come in and analyze their workflow. The group suggested Spokane Valley PD should add 25 officers to the force.
Of the 25 new officers, 10 would be patrol officers and 7 would be investigators, four would be school resource officers, one would be for homeless services and the final three would be for traffic. Adding these officers is expected to cost the city more than $6 million.
Over the last 15 years, Spokane Valley’s population has gone up by 20,000 people. In just the last five years, the number of people calling the police department every year has gone up by 8,000. Those calls are just for service and do not include crime check calls.
Because of the large number of added calls, officer response times have been longer, and the department has not had as much time to patrol the community.
The department’s plan says they want all the new officers on board by 2026.
During Tuesday night’s meeting, the council is only expected to discuss the change.
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