Menino resolves to add police

Menino resolves to add police - The Boston Globe

Mayor Thomas M. Menino said yesterday that he intends to boost the Boston Police Department by about 140 officers over the next year in response to the surge in violent crime troubling several neighborhoods of the city.

But Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a nonpartisan financial watchdog, questioned yesterday whether the city could afford the additional costs, particularly when it is negotiating with nearly every union and doesn't know how much it will take to settle their contracts.

Menino had insisted for months that the city could not afford hundreds more officers. But yesterday he said the city must dramatically increase police hiring, even if it means sacrificing elsewhere.