Mayoral challenger Paul Vallas vowed Monday to rebuild the Chicago Police

Department to 14,000 officers — with 1,200 detectives and one sergeant for every
10 officers — to erase years of “bad decisions” by Mayor Rahm Emanuel that, Vallas
claims, contributed heavily to a surge in violent crime.

Four months after questioning the sustainability of Emanuel’s two-year plan to hire
970 additional police officers over and above attrition, Vallas upped the ante by 500
officers.

He also outlined additional spending — on everything from equipment, incentives

and a new leadership academy for police supervisors to a return to five detective
areas and the hiring of retired detectives to boost a 17 percent homicide clearance
rate. The price tag for all that is well over $100 million.

"The police department has been disadvantaged because of the lack of consistency
in funding,” Vallas said Monday.

“Staffing. The lack of detectives. The lack of supervision. The lack of equipment. The
lack of training. The lack of maintaining the officer strength at the beat level. Those
... bad decisions in combination have contributed in a big way to the rise in crime.
Other cities don’t seem to be having these problems.”

To pay for his wish list, Vallas trotted out several ideas, including:

- Creating a Police Enterprise Fund to “secure funds from the confiscation of assets,
new fines for gun violations and other income-generating activities.”

- Using attrition to “gradually phase-out” full-time and private security officers at

the Chicago Public Schools and the CTA. That could easily cover half the cost of
salaries for full-time Chicago Police officers who assume those duties.

- Reducing police overtime by bolstering the force, maintaining beat integrity and
using specialized units to “avoid robbing Peter to pay Paul,” as Vallas put it.

- Following the lead of other major cities by inviting non-profits and “other tax-
exempt organizations," city contractors or businesses that receive tax breaks, city
subsidies or "other preferential treatment" to help fund police programs.

- Ordering a review of a Chicago Police Department budget that now stands at $1.46
billion. Even a 2 percent savings — perhaps through “strategic sourcing and leases
to cut costs and help maintain equipment” could go a long way, Vallas said.

- Using stepped up supervision, “redundant” training in use of Tasers, crisis

intervention, de-escalation tactics and the new “Staff and Command Academy”
to dramatically reduce costly settlement and judgments stemming from police
shootings that could have been avoided.
- Forging a “partnership” with the Fraternal Order of Police to develop a “long-term
financial plan” to “expand and sustain” police resources.

“I haven’t finalized the price tag yet. But, I’m pretty confident that the items that I’ve
identified will be able to generate enough money to basically fund it,” Vallas told
reporters at an hour-long news conference at the Union League Club.

Vallas stressed the “carrots” he hopes to use to appease the police union would also
come with a stick.

He supports civilian police review — without the power to hire and fire the police
superintendent — and favors changes to a police contract that, the Mayor’s Task
Force on Police Accountability said, turns the “code of silence into official policy."

Emanuel campaigned on a promise to hire 1,000 additional police officers. After

taking office, he revised the pledge, instead adding 1,000 more "cops on the beat."
More than half came from disbanding special units; the rest were primarily officers
reassigned to street duty from desk jobs.

The mayor also balanced his first budget by eliminating more than 1,400 police
vacancies, merging police and fire headquarters, reducing police and detective areas
from five to three and closing three district police stations: Wood, Belmont and
Prairie.

That started a downward spiral that, coupled with attrition, forced the mayor to rely
on runaway overtime when shootings and murders spiked.

Although the Emanuel administration’s aggressive outreach efforts have succeeded

in recruiting African-Americans to sign up for repeated police exams, too many
black candidates don’t bother showing up to take the exam.

To combat that problem, Vallas proposed creation of a “First Responders College,”

presumably at City Colleges, that draws from a “pipeline” of 10,000 Chicago Public
School students currently enrolled in ROTC programs.