Is Johnson's pledge to put 100 more cops on the street realistic?

One of the pillars of Jimmie Johnson's campaign for the city council has been that crime in Elk Grove has doubled since 2006. To remedy this crisis, Johnson has said that if elected he would work toward putting 100 more officers on the street in the next five years.

Based on information provided by the Elk Grove Police Department, it has been well documented that the data Johnson used to base this claim on is flawed. Unfortunately for Johnson, crime data for 2006 is incomplete and thus his claim has been largely dismissed and he has subsequently changed his rhetoric.

Nonetheless, for the sake of argument, let's say crime has doubled in over the last four years and there was a necessity to put more cops on the street or for that matter the people of Elk Grove simply clamored for a stronger police presence in the city.

Would it be economically feasible?

To examine this, let's look at Elk Grove's current fiscal year budget and do some conservative projections to see how much it would cost to add 20 officers a year for the next five years.  

Currently the Elk Grove Police Department has a total of 200 funded positions 125 (62.5%) of which are sworn positions. The city's total police compensation budget (starting on page 25) for fiscal year 2011 is  $23,850,000.

Using a conservative measure of 62.5% of the total compensation budget for sworn positions, that would mean approximately $14.9 million or, $119,200 in compensation per position.

In each of the next five years if 20 sworn officers were added, not to mention any accompanying support staff or other expenses such as patrol vehicles, it would cost the city $2,384,000 per year or $11,920,00 by the fifth year in compensation alone. This would equate to roughly a 50% increase in the police  compensation budget in five years.

With the police budget already making up close to one half of city's entire annual budget, and as we have seen crime has been fairly steady over the last four years, is this a realistic or even desirable burden hoisted on Elk Grove taxpayers?

Given the continuation of the recession and stagnant tax revenues, unless the taxpayers of Elk Grove are willing to forgo other vital city services, such as garbage services, Johnson's promise to put 100 more cops on the street is nothing more than a pipe dream.