{"id":981128,"date":"2026-08-04T23:59:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T23:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/981128\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T23:59:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T23:59:14","slug":"west-u-officials-discuss-police-hiring-changes-for-fy-2027-budget-bellaire-meyerland-west-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/981128\/","title":{"rendered":"West U officials discuss police hiring changes for FY 2027 budget | Bellaire – Meyerland – West University"},"content":{"rendered":"

West University Place is proposing adding two police officers in the fiscal year 2027 budget, which begins Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

What happened<\/strong><\/p>\n

During its July 30 budget workshop<\/a>, council members discussed staying within the state\u2019s voter-approved tax rate. However, Finance Director Marie Kalka informed officials that updated certified tax rolls showed the city would receive $342,000 more in revenue than originally expected, allowing officials to consider a small staffing increase without raising the tax rate.<\/p>\n

Officials discussed multiple options for the police department to hire additional officers. However, council ultimately decided on hiring two new officers under Option A.<\/p>\n

Option A would add two officers, fund their salaries through the operating budget and pay one-time costs such as vehicle and equipment through reserves. It would also increase employee merit raises from 2% to 3%. The decision would cost the city approximately $370,000.<\/p>\n

Other options B and B1 suggested hiring four officers and adding three or four vehicles, respectively. Option B would cost $839,000, while B1 would cost $973,000.<\/p>\n

What they\u2019re saying<\/strong><\/p>\n

Council member Kalie Rainsberger questioned whether the city should also raise police salaries to the 80th percentile of comparable agencies to remain competitive in recruiting officers.<\/p>\n

Rainsberger argued the compensation discussion has continued for years and asked why the city should delay addressing it.<\/p>\n

However, other city officials, including City Manager Dave Beach, said they would like to revisit which cities West U compares itself to before increasing salaries.<\/p>\n

They also pointed to resident feedback opposing a property tax increase, arguing the city should avoid asking voters for additional taxes unless there was a stronger data-driven justification.<\/p>\n

Police Chief Gary Ratliff said an independent staffing study conducted by the International City\/County Management Association<\/a> concluded the department should eventually have 42 officers, including 25 patrol officers, to give officers more time for proactive policing rather than primarily responding to calls.<\/p>\n

He said the department is currently on track to reach 31 officers after its latest hiring class completes training, with the additional two officers serving as another step toward that long-term staffing goal.<\/p>\n

What else?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Council member John Bertini moved to adopt the two-officer proposal, Option A, and the motion passed unanimously.<\/p>\n

After the budget workshop discussion on Aug. 3, council unanimously voted to set the 2027 property tax to a not-to-exceed rate of $0.219 per $100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"West University Place is proposing adding two police officers in the fiscal year 2027 budget, which begins Jan.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":981129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[28577,4345,5292,358,3187,104757,393720,86166],"class_list":["post-981128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-community-impact","tag-houston","tag-public-safety","tag-texas","tag-tx","tag-west-u","tag-west-u-police-department","tag-west-university-place"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117039960246994350","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=981128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/981129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=981128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=981128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=981128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}