JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — “I don't have to tell you, you know it: crime is ticking up in our community,” said Sheriff John Rutherford on Friday.
Rutherford says the number of shootings is up 58 percent from January to April 2014.
The money may be there to restore some of the cuts from the past.
“In 2011 we had 1,750 police, and we had the lowest crime numbers and the lowest murder numbers we'd had in 40 years! Then we started cutting.”
We're trying to restore the officers that we lost. Forty of the police officers that we lost and 40 of the resources officers that we lost. We are in negotiations, and it's been going very well.”
Rutherford said ideally he would like to add about 150 officers.
City Council Member Bill Bishop said the public can expect additional funding for libraries too, but no property tax cut.
“He's proposing a budget that keeps the mileage rate where the council put it last year, which is kind of ironic because last year he was adamant that we don't need a tax rate increase,” Bishop said.
It’s a topic Mayor Alvin Brown won’t touch until Monday at 9 a.m.
At an event today Brown said, “I can't talk about that, that's the thing I don't want to get into it.”