New Salt Lake City police chief requests nearly $15 million bump to budget

As Utah’s capital city has faced pressure from state leaders to crack down on crime, camping and drugs, Salt Lake City’s new police chief is seeking a nearly $15 million — or 12.4% — bump to the Salt Lake City Police Department’s budget. 

Chief Brian Redd — whom Mayor Erin Mendenhall appointed earlier this year to replace former police Chief Mike Brown after she pushed him to retire — gave his first budget presentation in front of the Salt Lake City Council on Thursday, when he made his case for an increase to the city police force’s budget. 

“We understand this is a flat budget year and a challenging year,” Redd told council members, acknowledging that his request may be tough for city leaders to fund based on projected revenues, but he thanked them for considering his proposal.

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Redd asked that city leaders consider bringing the Salt Lake City Police Department’s budget from $120 million this year to $135 million for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins July 1. The vast majority of his request — more than $13.3 million — would be for a roughly 8.7% increase to police wages and benefits that were negotiated through union agreements. 

Additionally, the increase would continue to fund 12 new police officer positions that city leaders recently approved to create two squads dedicated to patrolling the Jordan River Trail and surrounding neighborhoods — areas that have been impacted by homelessness issues and illegal camping. 

Notably, Redd’s request did not include any more full-time officer positions on top of the 12 that were added in the middle of the budget year. Currently, the Salt Lake City Police Department has 779 full-time employees. That includes 630 sworn officers and 149 civilian staff positions, according to city documents. 

Of those positions, about 45 sworn officer roles are currently vacant, up from 22 vacant positions in January 2024, when the department was authorized to staff up to 608 officers. After the department’s authorized officer staffing increased to 630, the number of vacant positions also increased, “reflecting the ongoing challenge of recruiting to meet expanding personnel needs,” according to a city staff report. 

“The Department is prioritizing the filling of these vacancies and has initiated a refinement of its sworn recruitment strategy,” the staff report says, “including expanding the recruitment team, streamlining the hiring and onboarding process, and allowing candidates to begin onboarding immediately following successful background checks.”

More money for a new ‘intelligence hub’ and drones

The budget proposal also includes $519,350 in one-time money and $35,325 in ongoing money to fund a Real Time Crime Center (RTCC) — which is envisioned to be a “centralized intelligence hub that leverages real-time data to enhance proactive policing, threat detection, and emergency response,” according to the staff report. 

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Redd said police officials are hoping to better utilize technology, “primarily cameras and license plate readers that will help us reduce crime, respond to crime more quickly and efficiently when it occurs.” 

“By integrating data streams from public safety cameras, drone footage, and other analytical tools, the RTCC will support smarter deployment decisions, more effective threat assessments, enhanced response times, and improved patrol planning across the city,” the report continues, adding that it “directly supports the goals outlined” in the mayor’s public safety plan.

Once up and running, the RTCC is envisioned to “triage calls for service using live feeds and real-time analysis, allowing the Department to tailor its response strategies based on up-to-the-minute information,” the staff report says. “The Center will also enable integration with fixed public safety cameras and drone video streams, and it is expected to expand into real-time

monitoring of social media platforms as part of the Department’s evolving threat management efforts.”

Redd is also asking the City Council to use $95,000 in one-time money and $53,550 in ongoing money to fund a new “drone as first responder” program, which would be designed to “utilize drones as an initial response tool in place of an in-person officer dispatch when appropriate.” 

“This model allows for rapid assessment of scenes, provides real-time situational awareness to responding officers, and enables more efficient use of Department resources — particularly in instances where a physical presence may not be necessary,” the city staff report says. 

The Salt Lake City Police Department has already been testing using drones to help officers. It launched a pilot program on Jan. 1, and since then the police department has conducted more than 420 drone deployments, according to the staff report. So far, they’ve only been used to “assess low-priority calls, such as 911 hang-ups, reports of suspicious activity, and incidents later determined to be unfounded.” 

Redd said he’s asking for funding to set up a new program to “actually deploy drones to active calls.” 

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Through an expanded drone program, department leaders hope to improve response times, offer better real-time information to officers, and free up more officers for “high-priority emergencies” while reducing the number of officers needed on scene in certain situations. 

“This is also a great de-escalation tool,” Redd said, adding that “the drone can go ahead of the officers to identify, does this person have a weapon? Are there citizens around? What do we do with traffic? So this is something we want to build out in the future.” 

Redd said the current budget request would act as “seed funding to really get this program off the ground,” and he added that “we will likely be coming back” with more budget requests in the future, not only for more drones but potentially for more full-time positions to support the program. 

“Ultimately what we hope is that investment will reduce the need to send officers to certain calls, or if we send officers, have eyes on before officers get to the situation for de-escalation purposes and safety purposes for our officers and the public,” Redd said. 

City Council warmly receives Redd’s proposal, but wants discussion on privacy

City Council member Alejandro Puy said he was supportive of the request, but also urged city leaders to be cautious and mindful when it comes to privacy concerns if they’re going to proceed with an expanded drone program. 

“Now, it seems to me that as a department we are evolving and growing and using new technologies,” Puy said, adding that more cameras, a monitoring center and “more drones” could open up “a lot of potential problems.” 

“The only way I feel like approving this is (if) there’s a legislative intent from our side to have a deep policy discussion for the use, the monitoring, of drones and cameras, accounting for civil liberties questions, the privacy, the right of privacy, also accountability, transparency, all of these things that need to be in policy,” Puy said. “Because if not, we are probably walking ourselves into a problem waiting to happen.” 

While Puy added “it’s important to approve this,” he said city leaders need to ensure “people using it know what is appropriate and what is not. … All of these potential things that could go wrong, (but) also highlighting for our neighbors the use of this and how it could go right.” 

Redd said his department is already “working on that” with the mayor’s office, “and would love to engage all of you and also your communities that you represent.” He added that “we’re also engaged at the state level, with the state’s data privacy officer and legislators are also looking at this.” 

“We want to get it right,” Redd said. “That’s important.” 

The Salt Lake City Council has until the end of June to finalize the budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1.